


Parallel Lives

by caricari



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ancient Egypt, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley is Good at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Definitely just casual sex, Enemies With Benefits, Enemies to Friends, First Kiss, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Historical, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, Live action remake of that wrestling statue, Lonely immortal beings, Not a forbidden love story, Other, Pining through antiquity, Pining through the middle ages, Rating will go up, Sexual Tension, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Slow Burn, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Will add tags as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 90,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27800044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caricari/pseuds/caricari
Summary: Just another slow burn about an angel and a demon growing up together on Earth..
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 169
Kudos: 103





	1. 4000 BCE, Eden

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read, edited, and vastly improved by [ AJ ](https://www.instagram.com/theeyjayy/). 
> 
> Updates every Monday.

**4000 BCE, Eden**

.

In the beginning, Earth was lush and verdant. It was everything a new world should be - a paradise in isolation. There were mountains and valleys, and forests, and plains. There were lakes and rivers, running fresh and clear. There were deserts that stretched beyond the horizons. And every last inch of it teemed with life.

The humans were different to the other creatures of Eden. Gangly and hairless, they had no sharp teeth or talons with which to defend themselves. They were clever enough but easily distractible, and they spent a great deal of their time rolling around on top of one another in a manner that did not seem productive at all. There was a general consensus, among the angels who had been posted to Eden, that the Almighty was being ruthlessly optimistic in thinking that humanity would rise to rule all life on Earth. Aziraphale of the Eastern gate, however, had been fascinated with them since his arrival.

Aziraphale spent hours at a time watching Adam and Eve from up on his perch. He liked to listen to their songs and stories - liked to watch them invent new noises to communicate, and work things out with their clever hands. He liked the fact that they came as a pair. 

Aziraphale had been living in the garden for rather more than seven days before the events of the apple tree and he had grown quite fond of his position in that time. It made a nice change from Heaven, after all. The wall was perfectly pleasant to sit atop and the grass below was very pleasant against his feet. He liked wandering the forests of Eden, and drinking from the little streams, and tasting the fruits of the trees. Grapes, in particular, were scrumptious. 

Eden was the antithesis of Heaven in many ways - with its heat, and its colour, and it's vibrance. Aziraphale initially worried that it might be blasphemous to prefer the place, but he soon managed to convince himself that it couldn’t be that bad. Earth was made by the Almighty, after all. It could not be a bad thing, to love it. She would never intentionally make something bad. 

This, of course, was before he met the demon. 

.

The demon appeared on the same day that the humans fled, slithering up Eden’s wall with the air of a creature who was not entirely sure what all the fuss was about. Indeed, his first words, to Aziraphale, were something to that effect. Or his second words were, anyway. His first had been some clever quip - probably to assert his intellectual dominance. (Demons were wily, after all. Aziraphale had learned that at the knee of the older angels. Demons were wily and cunning, and out to wring Earth and humanity for all they were worth. Demons were very, very bad). 

He had expected the demon to be a bit _more_ bad, actually.

Standing on the rampart of the great eastern wall, Aziraphale had considered his new counterpart with nervous interest. He had never met a member of the opposition before. The demon looked much more like him than he had been led to expect. Like Aziraphale, it had been sent down (or up, the angel supposed) in a human-shaped corporation. Like Aziraphale, it had senses with which to interpret the world. It even reacted to stimulus in a similar fashion - flinching as the clouds rumbled overhead and rain began to patter down. It flinched rather a lot, actually…

Standing on the wall, Aziraphale felt a rush of pity for the other creature. At least he had been warned about the rain, he thought, lifting a wing to shelter his demonic counterpart. At least he knew that it was just water and that it would stop eventually. The poor demon probably thought the end was coming. 

Aziraphale ended up sheltering the demon for the rest of the storm. Crawly (the name by which he had introduced himself) seemed grateful. Or, rather, as grateful as a demon could be. (Aziraphale had been assured repeatedly by his superiors that, while wily, demons did not have the same emotional range that angels did, and Aziraphale should not worry about smiting them. Not that he should waste undue Heavenly resources on it, either. A few demons, here and there, weren’t too much of a bother, Gabriel had told him, stoutly. The end was still a long way off yet). 

Aziraphale did not make any attempts at smiting, therefore, as they stood and stared out at the world beyond the garden. He found himself grateful that they did not have to get to that part right away. Though Crawly’s vivid eyes and hair were initially startling, the demon turned out to be rather good conversation. And Aziraphale had missed having others to talk to. 

So, they talked until the rain stopped. Then, Aziraphale shook the water from his wings and folded them back behind himself, while Crawly moved to sit on the edge of the wall. 

“What d’you reckon happens now?” the demon asked, making himself comfortable. 

Aziraphale let out a little sigh. 

“I don’t know. I suppose, the only real option is to follow the humans out there.”

“What - out there? All on your own?” 

“Yes.”

Crawly pulled a face, wrinkling his long nose. It was a nice nose, Aziraphale thought. Different from his own and different from the humans’ - but nice all the same. 

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“Why not?” Aziraphale shrugged, moving to sit down beside the demon. “It's not as if there's much left for us to do in here. Adam and Eve took the future of humanity with them.”

“Nnh _._ ” Crawly tilted his head, eyes washing over the sandy horizon - now glistening in the returned sun. “I suppose it's just a bit big, isn’t it?”

“Big?” 

“Yeah, big. You know… Vast. Immense. Expansive.”

“At least it’s finite,” Aziraphale pointed out. “That’ll make a change from Heaven. Imagine - we could walk all the way around it and come back on the other side!” 

“What? Like a tunnel?” 

“Like a disc, I think.” The angel frowned. “Or maybe a globe. It’s definitely possible to get from one end to the other, in some way. Gabriel told me.” He folded his hands in his lap. “I think I should like to try that, some day. I wonder if there’s any more to it than sand..”

Crawly sniffed.

“I doubt it. All I’ve seen is sand and I’ve had a look over all the walls, now. Touch unimaginative, if you ask me…” They watched the sand a little longer. Then Crawly cleared his throat and turned to face the angel. “So, uh… which direction are you thinking of heading? You know. When you leave.” His tone was heavy with the sort of nonchalance one could only achieve by never having attempted nonchalance before, (nor having observed the concept). 

Aziraphale scanned the horizon. During his long patrols along the eastern wall, he had become familiar with a number of landmarks. There were a few that would serve to navigate by. 

“That way.” He pointed to a hook-shaped mountain on the western horizon. “That’s where the sun disappears, at the end of the day. As good a direction to go in as any.”

“Ah!” Crowley nodded, enthusiastically. “Excellent choice. Me too, as a matter of fact - exactly where I was planning to head. Clever idea, to follow the sun, you know? Just what the humans would do. Keeps us on their trail.”

It was the first ‘us’ Aziraphale had ever been included in, since his posting to Earth, and the sound of it made him blink with surprise. He had not really thought about he and Crawly being an ‘us’ - as the humans could be an ‘us’, in groups of two or more - but he supposed they were, really. They were the only two supernatural creatures on the face of the Earth, right now, (all the other angels having been recalled to a meeting that Aziraphale had pointedly not been invited to attend). He and Crawly might be from different places and nothing alike, but they were both of angel stock. Aziraphale supposed they were an ‘us’… even if only in an exclusionary, Earthly sense. 

“So you’ll be heading that way too?” He asked the demon, feeling strangely invigorated by the idea of being part of an ‘us’, (thinking that they might be able to be an ‘us’ for a bit longer before they had to get down to all the blessing and the smiting that was foretold in his mission briefs). 

It was so very nice to have someone to talk to. It had been so very dull, all by himself. 

Crawly shrugged. 

“I’m minded to, yeah.”

“Well.” Aziraphale beamed. “I suppose we will be seeing rather more of one another, then.”

“Yeah…” The demon eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose we will.”

.

Time passed. The sun lowered. 

Aziraphale occupied himself by scraping his name into one of the stones of the wall - thinking that he might leave behind a little sign that he had been there, in case anyone else came this way who was able to decipher celestial symbols.

The demon Crawly, meanwhile, occupied himself by breaking bits of a brick apart and seeing how far he could throw them.

He was showing no sign of wanting to venture off by himself, Aziraphale noticed - in a westerly direction or otherwise. Not that the angel minded. The demon was quite nice to look at, really. All of the hair, in particular. The way it tumbled down around him like water. It was definitely better than staring out into the emptiness of the desert. 

As if drawn by the thought, Crawly swung his large golden eyes back around and fixed Aziraphale with a grin. 

“Did you see that one?”

“Hm?” The angel felt his lips stretch reflexively, in response. Crawly was even prettier when he smiled. “What one?”

“My last throw.” Crawly pointed. “I got one of the gulls.” 

Aziraphale’s smile dropped into a scowl. 

“Oh - don’t!” He reached out, pulling the rest of the brick from the demon’s long hands. “That’s horrible. Not very nice at all!”

The comment earned him a bark of laughter, and a widening of the grin - though Crawly let the brick go easily enough. 

“I’m not supposed to be nice,” he reminded. Then, when Aziraphale continued to scowl; “Oh, come on. I barely touched it… Don’t get your wings in a twist.” 

Rolling back onto his own wings, the demon stretched out flat on the surface of the wall, staring up at the sky. He was very long, the angel thought. Possibly longer than Aziraphale himself. 

Just to check, the angel decided to lie down beside his counterpart and stretch to his fullest extent. 

His eyes only came up to Crawly’s chin. The demon was definitely longer. They appeared similar in most other respects, though. They both had heads and torsos, Aziraphale thought, letting his eyes drag over the concave scoop of Crawly’s belly. They both had eyes and noses and the same number of limbs.

Across the way, Crowley seemed to be sharing the same thought. 

Rolling over, he held out his hand, palm flat and eyebrows raised - an offer to compare. 

A little cautiously, Aziraphale reached across the gap between them. He wondered vaguely if he was meant to be entertaining such interest in his adversary but decided, on the whole, that the Almighty wouldn’t have given him such an opportunity if he wasn’t meant to learn something from it. Perhaps it counted as gathering intelligence? Surely none of the other angels had such first hand experience of a demon. Not one bound to an Earthly body. Really, it was his duty to find out as much about Crawly as he could…

Spreading his fingers, Aziraphale held his palm against the demon’s, eyes taking in the similarities and differences. They both had the same number of fingers, they discovered, and palms of roughly the same shape. The angel’s hand was a little broader, his fingers thicker, while the demon’s were longer to the tips. They both had neat little nails at the ends - pink and white, in perfect crescents. Aziraphale’s were as clean as they had been the day he’d arrived on Earth. Crawly’s were packed with dirt.

Their attention turned to wrists, next - the angel’s were wider, the demon’s more bony - and then to arms. Crawly had dark hair over his forearms while Aziraphale’s were dusted with almost translucent blonde. The skin underneath the demon’s was lightly freckled, whereas the angel’s was not. The same was true of their shoulders, though Crawly’s freckles were more numerous and darker there. Necks were much of a muchness. 

Coming to chests, they had to tug themselves free of their tunics to compare. They found that the demon’s hair was a bit darker than on his head, while the angel’s was equally fair. Crawly’s was distributed a bit differently, too - a thin stripe that ran right down the centre of him, as opposed to the even dusting the angel had, only thicker between the nipples. 

Nipples were a bit of an odd thing, they decided, but they seemed to be distributed equally. Bellies weren’t. Aziraphale’s was soft, whereas Crawly was all sinew and bone - nothing spare. The angles of their hips were different too, they found, as they continued downwards, even if what they had between their legs was similar. Crawly had been given a bit more skin. The hair colour matched that of elsewhere on their bodies, there. If a bit darker. 

Satisfied neither of them were missing out, they moved onto legs, and then to feet, which turned out to be the most interesting. The demon’s were far longer - even in proportion to his long body. Crawly laughed as they lay them against one another, while pulling tunics back on to protect their bodies from the sun. 

“I imagine that means my body’s faster,” he commented, as Aziraphale threw a slightly petulant frown up at him. 

“Oh, I doubt it.”

“Oh come on,” the demon grinned, “look at rabbits. Rabbits have big feet. They’re much faster than mice.”

“Angels do not often get compared to mice,” Aziraphale pointed out, a tad stiffly.

Crawly's bluster faded a bit, his eyes darting around the angel's face. 

Perhaps he had forgotten that he was talking to one of Heaven’s emissaries, Aziraphale thought. Crawly had most likely received a pep talk, same as he had, before being sent to Earth. The demon had probably been told plenty about the opposition - about the great, righteous power that Aziraphale would carry with him. He wondered if Crawly was frightened of him. He stretched his wings a little wider, just in case. 

The movement distracted the demon entirely.

Kneeling up, Crawly stretched out his own wings and they knelt across from one another, for a moment, mirrored to the extremities. Their wings were identical, Aziraphale noted, but for the colour. They matched, scapular to primary feathers, all the way along the crest of their span. 

Having not much to do on the wall but keep a watch and preen, the angel was glad to see that his iridescent shine held up to the dark shimmer of his counterpart’s. They stood, admiring the effect of their great wings, curved inwards towards one another, for a good minute or so. Then, Crawly leant in slightly and brushed the tip of his right against the angel’s left. 

Aziraphale gave a little jump, leaning back. 

“How high can you fly?” The demon asked, undeterred. “Is it the same as moving through space in other dimensions? Are you fast?” 

The angel blinked.

How could one person be so full of questions?

“I don’t know,” he answered, truthfully. He’d never really tested it out, himself. 

“Want to race? We can go to the end of the wall, on foot, and then over to that sand dune, by air.” He pointed, then turned back to Aziraphale, holding his hand out.

The angel stared at it. 

“What in Heaven’s name am I supposed to do with that?” 

“Shake it, if you want to race. Don’t, if you’re a coward. Simple.” 

It wasn’t really a fair choice, thought Aziraphale. He couldn’t exactly back down from a test of skills, against a member of the opposition. How would it look to Heaven, if he turned tail at the very first hurdle? How would it look to Hell, if Eden’s guardian appeared frightened of their Serpent? 

Aziraphale eyed the demon’s hand warily. 

“Do you promise not to cheat?” 

Crawly rolled his eyes.

“Yes, yes.”

“Well… Okay, then.”

The angel held out his hand and his counterpart took it. 

For a moment, they just held one another there, then Crawly yanked his hand away so fast that Aziraphale was left blinking into sunlight and pulled himself to his feet, tearing off along the rampart. 

“Hey!” 

_The dirty cheat!_

Scrambling to his feet, he took off after the demon. 

“Come back here!” 

Running was new. It involved a decent amount of coordination, but Aziraphale had been on Earth for a good number of days and it was a natural bridge from walking. His mortal form was not best adapted for distance, but his legs were strong enough to pack a punch in a short sprint and he knew the surface of Eden’s wall intimately. He had walked it every day, since the beginning. He knew all of its little imperfections, every bump and crack, and soon he was gaining on the demon. 

It helped that Crawly was not terribly good at running. He just seemed to have too much limb to get the process going with any degree of efficiency. His long feet skidded against the sandy stone. His hips never seemed properly orientated for onwards velocity. Even after the delayed start, Aziraphale was only a couple of steps behind him when they reached the end of the wall and took off into the air. 

They lifted one after another, soaring upwards in a perfectly offset double helix, arcing towards the sand dune where the remnants of the demon’s brick littered the ground. In the air, Aziraphale held a definite advantage. He had needed to glide up and down from the wall for a while, now, to attend to one thing or another. His wings were worked in. Crawly’s, on the other hand, were still a little stiff from an eternity spent in another dimension. 

The demon lost altitude near the end of their flight, plunging rather abruptly down into the sand, a dozen lengths short of where he had meant to. Aziraphale soared right over his head to land more sedately, halfway down the dune. 

The failure did not seem to drag Crawly’s spirits, however. He was sitting up on the sand and grinning widely as Aziraphale touched down. 

“That was brilliant." Pulling himself to his feet, the demon staggering around in a circle, squinting up at the sky. “Fantastic things, bodies. Big fan.” He looked down at his hands, then up his wings, then over at Aziraphale. “You know, I bet I'm stronger - if I’m not faster. I must be stronger. It only makes sense.” 

Aziraphale frowned, but did not gather himself quickly enough. Before he could even open his mouth, Crawly had bounded forwards and pushed him down, into the sand. 

They rolled down the dune, hands meeting hands and feet tangling together. As they reached the bottom, Aziraphale shook his head and tried to right himself - feeling mildly irritated and with half a mind to tell the demon off - but the sight of his new counterpart grinning and shaking sand from his hair somehow pulled laughter to his lips, instead of disapproval. And the laughter spurred the demon back into action. 

Not bothering to get up this time, Crawly threw himself over, catching the angel about the shoulders. They wrestled for half a minute, laughter rising in them until they were almost incoherent. Then, the angel managed to twist the slighter demon over onto his back and pin him, on his back, in the sand. 

Crawly grinned up, panting heavily. 

“Damn. Not stronger either, huh?”

“It seems not,” Aziraphale panted back, watching his sand-dusted counterpart grin up at him, and feeling a strange emotion that might just have been a _liking_ for the other creature welling up inside him. 

No, that couldn’t be right, he thought, vaguely. He couldn’t _like_ a demon. Demons were bad. It must just be an artefact of all the adrenaline surging through him. Earthly bodies could be a pain, with all their little hormones and quirks. 

“Wonder what I’m better at, then?”

Crawly wriggled around a bit, trying to get free, but Aziraphale did not let him up - unsure what the demon’s next step in testing his corporation would be, and absolutely sure he did not have the energy to find out. He was quite exhausted from their short run, fly, and tumble through the sand. 

“Perhaps you’re better at sitting still?” He suggested, hopefully. 

Crawly pulled half a pout. 

“I doubt it.”

“Yes…” Aziraphale sighed, wearily. “Somehow, so do I.” 

Relenting, he rolled off the demon and onto his back, throwing his head back to catch his breath. His wing was pressed up against Crawly’s right shoulder. The demon’s wing was half under his back. They looked as if they had fallen from colossal height together and ended up somewhere completely unexpected. Perhaps they had, the angel mused. Earth had proved to be quite beyond anything he had expected, thus far. Perhaps Crawly felt the same.

Turning his head, he eyed the demon. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, as things go on,” He told his opposite number, kindly. “What you’re best at, I mean.”

Crawly looked over at him, golden eyes bright, still smiling slightly. 

Aziraphale found himself feeling quite sure that the demon would be fine on Earth. Earth was full of pretty things, after all. And Crawly had so much energy. He would be kept well on his toes, Aziraphale thought, following this one around. 

The thought made him want to close his eyes and rest. Sleep, the angel thought. Yes. The humans did that, sometimes - when it grew too dark to hunt or find their way through Eden’s thick forests. It looked like a lovely idea. He could really do with closing his eyes…

But he didn’t. 

He sat up, instead, firmly reminding himself that Crawly was still there and - while bested for the time being - it would not do to sleep with a demon in close proximity. Aziraphale was an emissary from Heaven, after all. He must display watchfulness, at all times. Constant vigilance. Crawly had been sent to corrupt Earth and all upon it. The demon had one goal; to turn humanity from God and set about Armageddon. The wiles of the evil one were limitless, Aziraphale reminded himself. Letting his guard down was precisely how he would become ensnared!

To his left, Crowley licked the sand experimentally and then sputtered for a while. 

.

As the afternoon wore on, the angel and the demon climbed to the top of their sand dune and stared out, into the gathering dusk. It was too late to set off after the humans, tonight, Aziraphale thought. And he had a couple of things to wrap up, before setting out from Eden. He was waiting to hear instructions, from Heaven. And there were the gates to lock. It wouldn’t do to have someone breaking into the place, while he was away.

By his side, Crawly had pulled the hood of his tunic around him as the cooler night air breezed in. The fabric covered most of the demon’s head, but a few strands of hair had escaped, and were dancing in the wind. They curled around his neck in sinuous shapes. They looked like the attempt at the celestial symbols Aziraphale had drawn on the brick, high on Eden’s wall. 

The angel moved to sit closer, feet dug into the sand to keep warm as he stared into the west, watching the sun sink below the horizon.

“Do you think you’ll like it, here?” Crawly asked, eventually. 

It was a more serious tone than he had used before. When Aziraphale looked over, he found Crawly’s face to be serious, too - his dark brow furrowed over bright eyes.

“I think so,” Aziraphale answered, cautiously. “At the very least, I suppose it will be interesting.”

“Yeah, I suppose…”

“What about you?” He asked the demon, in turn. “Do you think you will like it?”

“Dunno.” Crawly shrugged and wrapped his arms around his knees, drawing his legs into his chest. “Are you really going to go out there, after them?” 

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad."

“Yeah, but on your own…” The demon wrinkled his nose, staring out into the sand. “I don’t think I like that bit, you know? Feels sort of funny, after a while - being alone. Didn’t think i’d have a problem with it, having escaped the assholes downstairs. It’s always so fucking crowded there. But it turns out, after a while, you’d even welcome the assholes… Well…” he pulled a face. “Some of the assholes.” 

He looked over at Aziraphale, who tried to rearrange his features into something less like surprise. 

The angel had not expected much introspection from a creature who had spent the last however-many days slithering around Eden’s undergrowth, nipping at the occasional heel and sowing discord, shame and blasphemy into the human race. He had expected a bit more cruelty and ignorance. But the demon was chaotic, rather than cruel, and the way he watched the world was with endless curiosity, not ignorance. Crawly would get along just fine on Earth, Aziraphale thought, dimly. He’d probably fit in better than the angel himself. 

“Perhaps, you should ask for a companion?” He suggested.

The words were barely out of his mouth before he was mentally berating himself. (What sort of Principality suggested that the opposition might like to gather reinforcements? What a terrible joke Hell was going to think of him!)

Crawly did not appear to think him a joke, however. The demon just raised an eyebrow, regarding him with curiosity. 

“What do you mean?”

“A companion,” Aziraphale repeated, feeling he might as well continue with the point, now that it was out his foolish mouth. “You know… someone to go through it all with. Someone for company, comfort, that sort of thing.” 

“What? Like another demon?”

“Well, yes,” the angel blinked. “Naturally.”

Crawly gave an affected little shudder. “I’m sorry, have you _met_ any of us?” 

“I’ve met you,” Aziraphale pointed out. 

“Well, I’m the best of a bad bunch and I’d still drive myself mad,” Crawly said, giving a little shake of the head. “Nah, s’not for me.” 

Aziraphale looked back out, at the sunset. 

“I asked for one,” he admitted, quietly, after a time.

That caught the demon’s attention. Crawly looked over, quickly. The angel felt his golden eyes fix, in the periphery of his vision.

“Yeah?” 

“Yes. Quite a while ago, now,” Aziraphale elaborated. “When I first arrived. I thought-,” he faltered, blushing. It was a silly thing, really. He wasn’t sure why he was self conscious about it. Then again, he wasn’t sure why he was sharing the story with a demon, either, but here he was - sharing. “Well, I just thought that the humans looked happier when they were together,” he continued, “and that, if I was going to be down here, in a physical body, pretending to be a human, I might want someone to share the experience with. There’s a lot to this world that’s nothing like up there, you know-,” he cut himself off, glancing over at Crawly, wondering if it was offensive to mention Heaven around someone who had been cast out of it. 

But Crawly did not seem bothered by the statement. He focussed on the previous one instead. 

“So, you’re saying there will be another angel along, soon?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale brightened up. “Well, I assume soon, anyway. My request for a companion was approved. So, now, I just need to wait. Apparently that sort of thing is outsourced, nowadays. It will happen when it happens. When budgets and assignments align, and all that.” He beamed a little, despite trying not to - despite trying to appear contained and dignified. But it was hard. He was excited. He was looking forward to having someone assigned down here, with him, to share in all of this. “Could be any day, now.”

“Right.” The demon looked a little put out, but rallied almost at once. “Well, put in a good word for me, won’t you - when they arrive?” 

The angel raised an eyebrow.

“What for?”

“Not many angels will give a demon the time of day,” Crawly admitted, sheepishly. "Wouldn’t want your other half to cast me into oblivion just for poking my forked tongue out, once in a while. Maybe… tell them I didn’t bite too many ankles? Or only did some mild tempting?”

“You led the humans to the tree of knowledge,” Aziraphale pointed out. 

“Nnh.” 

“You told them to eat the forbidden fruit.”

“Nnn'yeah, well… they were already sleeping under the tree when I got there, to be honest. And they hadn’t eaten breakfast. It was barely a nudge, really.” The demon’s golden eyes darted between Aziraphale’s, nervously. “I could’ve done a lot worse…”

The angel watched Crawly and Crawly watched him back. For a brief moment, Aziraphale was sure that they were thinking exactly the same thing - wondering if the demon was actually capable of doing much worse. So far, he had shown no sign of it. 

Crawly recovered first, clearing his throat. 

“Anyways, I’d appreciate it.”

“I shall mention your restraint,” Aziraphale agreed, diplomatically, “but I won’t lie.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to,” the demon nodded. “Much obliged.” They watched one another for a few seconds, then the demon cleared his throat and, clearly endeavouring to move the topic on, asked, “So, what have they told you to expect from this companion? They’re not sixteen feet tall and wielding various forms of deadly weaponry, are they?”

“No idea,” Aziraphale smiled, pulling his legs in as the demon had done, and wrapping his arms around his knees. The sun was dropping lower and the air was growing quite cold. Soon, it would take a miracle to keep them both warm. Aziraphale supposed he wasn’t allowed to spend miracles on such frivolities as personal comfort. “I’m just hoping for someone who’s good company, really,” he mused aloud, to stave off thoughts of the cold. His mind wandered to the garden and the humans, and watching them find one another. It just looked like such a nice, literal interpretation of love, to have someone who was just _there_ for you. Just always there. 

He told Crawly so. 

The demon looked unconvinced. 

“And I hope they’re kind,” the angel added eventually, ignoring his counterpart’s growing disinterest in the subject. “Someone brave and clever, as well - but kind is most important. People can be so many things, but I think I’d choose kind, every time.” 

“ _Gak_.” The demon stuck his tongue out, making the same noise he had made when he spat the sand out of his mouth earlier. “Satan, that sounds dull… Why not choose someone with a sense of humour? You know, to keep things interesting?” 

“The world will be full of people who take things too lightly,” the angel insisted, eyes playing over the pink of the clouds and the burning orange of the dying light. Already, the sky overhead was streaked with purple, fading back to indigo behind them, fading to black. “I think I’d like someone who cares.” 

The demon pulled another face.

“ _Ugh_. If you must.”

They sat for a while longer. 

.

Slowly, the sun slipped away and the night grew dark. It grew too cold to stay warm out in the open, so the angel and the demon wandered back to the garden and, at the gate, they paused to look at one another before turning their separate ways. 

“Well, nice to meet you, anyways,” the demon shrugged. “I’ll need to be getting on, but I suppose we’ll see one another around.”

“Suppose we will.” The angel smiled. 

They watched one another carefully for a moment, Aziraphale noticing that the demon was doing a very poor job of looking like he wanted to ‘get on’. He felt another rush of pity for his opposite number. It couldn’t be very nice to have to return to Hell, after this paradise. He hoped Crawly would be allowed to remain topside for another few days. They could talk a bit more, he thought, wistfully. He might even let the demon race him again, if he wanted. After a bit of rest. 

“Goodnight, Crawly,” the angel bid, taking a step backwards, towards the base of the wall. 

The demon frowned, looking around. 

“Is it?”

“Oh, I just meant…” Aziraphale gave an awkward little shuffle of his feet. “It’s just something to say, you know, at the end of a day. Like a blessing on your evening, I suppose.”

Crawly pulled a face. 

“Don’t go offering me blessings, Angel. I might burst into flame or something.”

Aziraphale felt a rush of uncertainty. He hadn’t thought of that. 

“Oh, my apologies!”

“S’ alright… No harm done.”

They stared at one another for another while. 

“Well, goodnight, then,” the demon mumbled, then turned rather sharply and wandered off in the direction of Eden’s orchards. 

Aziraphale watched him go, noticing that he wasn’t much better at walking than at running. He sort of meandered, did Crawly. Perhaps, it was a serpent thing - a penchant for undulation. 

Giving a sigh at the stretched, tired feeling of his body, and the strangeness of the day, the angel turned back to the wall and slipped through its secret door, climbing the many, many steps that led to its high ramparts. There, he paced along for a while, looking down over Eden, then looking out over the world beyond, unable to catch sight of either the Serpent or the humans. He hoped they were all safe and resting somewhere. 

.

Eventually, he took a seat on the corner between the Eastern and Southern walls, on the little outcrop of stone, there. Though the night grew long, he resisted sleep. He wasn’t entirely sure why - only that it felt somehow unbecoming of one of the heavenly host, to give in to such physical weakness. He was meant to be keeping a watch of God’s realm, after all. It was an important task. 

He kept himself awake by humming to himself. Then, when that got dull, he made up a few words, to go with his song. Then, he amused himself by carving Crawly’s name into one of the rocks on the edge of the wall. It was about where they had taken off from during their race, earlier that day. It was fitting, the angel thought. He had carved his name where they started their race, after all. It was right that both of them should be mentioned. They were the first here, after all. 

Finished, he admired his work. It was only a little more clear than the script he had managed of his own name. Aziraphale gave the project up as a bad job.

Leaning back against the stone, he focused his eyes instead on the eastern horizon and waited for it to grow light, waited for a sign of anyone coming to tell him what to do, waited for a hint that God’s acceptance of his request for a companion was going to be fulfilled. He was excited about the futures that lay ahead of them, in this strange, new world. He was excited to explore it all with someone - though he hoped his new companion did not harass the demon, too much. He quite liked Crawly, despite all the chaos and nervous energy. He was one of the most interesting creatures the angel had had the fortune of meeting in the last however-many thousand years. 

.

Aziraphale was sad when the demon did not emerge from the garden, the following morning. When he still hadn’t appeared by noon, he actually went looking for him - but a scarred patch of earth, in the orchards, told him Crawly had been recalled below. The angel found himself disappointed, though distraction came quickly in the form of Gabriel. 

The archangel appeared above the Eastern gate, shining most gloriously. Aziraphale was to be sent out, he spoke, in that voice that seemed to echo down from the Heavens themselves. He was to go forth, into the world - alone for now - to do God’s work. He would guide the humans to grow and create in Her image. He would lead them to lead lives of good, and steer the future in Heaven’s favour. 

Aziraphale seized the instructions with nervous excitement. Telling the archangel he would do his very best, he locked the gates of Eden, and set off into the west. 

.

Some days later, Crawly was pushed unceremoniously back up through the Earth, a little battered and bruised, and followed. At a distance. 

.


	2. 2954 BCE, Egypt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1000 years after their first meeting, Aziraphale and Crawly bump into one another in Memphis and the demon offers to help Aziraphale for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Description of a fistfight. Crawly getting his lip split. Mention of child exploitation. (Nothing 'on screen' and the context is of helping the humans involved, but I wanted to drop a warning just in case).

**2954 BCE, Egypt**

.

The next thousand years were a voyage of discovery. The Earth was every bit as vast as Crawly had predicted to Aziraphale, back in the garden. To the angel's surprise, however, it turned out not to be entirely covered in sand. Beyond the walls, there were a multitude of terrains. Mountains and rivers. Valleys and oceans. Forests that stretched for hundreds of miles. Aziraphale travelled widely, during those first centuries, taking it all in, watching humanity grow and learn and multiply.

Life was hard for Adam and Eve’s descendants. Disease stole their children and the sun baked their skin as they fought to scrape a living from the dust. Nevertheless, they persisted. Families grew slowly into tribes and then into nations. Mesopotamia filled with the living. Little villages rose up around fertile patches of land and the people moved in-between, carrying with them the sound of stories and laughter and song. 

Her Humans had a penchant for making noise. There was not a single, silent moment that they did not seem to want to fill. The young were the loudest. They chattered away like sparrows, flitting around their parents’ ankles, eyes searching, curiosity unquenchable. They were most beautiful that way, Aziraphale thought, before Earth ground them down, into cynicism. 

The older humans were not devoid of hope, however. Even after harsh winters stole their animals and long summers parched them of water, they kept making noise - kept sharing stories and songs. They built homes in places Aziraphale could not have imagined them building. They travelled distances that would have made the angel’s Earthly feet ache. They climbed mountains just to see what lay at the top. And they worshiped as if they had been made to do so.

They did not always get it right.

Aziraphale had known from the outset that they would not always get it right - but he was surprised to find that, even when they got it wrong, it was often with the best of intentions. Most of the time, they were just trying to do right by their families. If they squabbled amongst themselves, it was over the land’s meagre offerings. If they waged war, it was to defend their children’s futures. There were a few who succumbed to lives of greed, and envy, and lust, but the vast majority of humanity just wanted to leave one another alone and get on with things.

Aziraphale was not along in being posted to Earth. There were a few other principalities dotted around the place, as well as numerous guardian angels. And demons, of course.

Aziraphale saw the serpent demon Crawly less than he would have expected, during those first few centuries. Their paths crossed about a dozen times, but the demon seemed much more reticent to interact than he had been that first day, on the ramparts. Perhaps he had received a telling off for being too friendly. Certainly Gabriel had not been best pleased to hear that Aziraphale had interacted with a demon on such neutral terms. 

“Next time, just smite it,” the archangel had drawled, in that bored, superior tone he employed so well. “No point in gathering intelligence on demons - bound to an Earthly body or not. They’re demons, Aziraphale. They’re all the same.”

They weren’t, though. Aziraphale learned that soon enough. 

He met three other demons, during his first thousand years on Earth. The first two had been shallow, slinking things that lived in darkness. One specialised in plague and the other in corruption. The latter had tried to hurl Hellfire at him from the shadows of a citadel, one evening. The former, Aziraphale had smote for infecting all the children of a small encampment with a fatal pox. 

The third demon he met was Dagon, a lesser Lord of Hell. 

Dagon was a creature unlike any of the supernatural beings Aziraphale had come across on Earth. They were very old and very powerful. They had been living like a heathen god in one of the cities of the southern plains when Aziraphale crossed their path - spreading want and inducing others to perversions of the flesh.Sex had been made for love and pleasure but Dagon twisted it into a thing of violence and manipulation. They stripped the care and connection from it, breaking the covenant of consent. Even after they had left the town on the banks of the river Jordan, the place had seethed with residual evil. The children born of their consorting grew up neglected, bold, and cruel amongst the population. Soon, the place was overrun with the taint of Hell.

Perversion and cruelty spilled over into the neighbouring towns. Humans fought and bit and writhed over one another, wanting and taking until Heaven came down and smote that little corner of the land from existence. Erased them from the Earth like a word wiped from a waxed tablet.

It had been horrible. All of it. 

Whatever Gabriel said, Aziraphale could not see any similarity between Crawly and a creature such as Dagon. They might come from the same place, but they were about as alike as the sun and the moon.

The Demon Lord was the poorer reflection, thought the angel. Their cruelty was evidence of their lack of finesse. The way they operated only in base want was a sign of their ignorance. Dagon did not truly understand the humans. They might slip up from Hell every few centuries and rage amongst them, leaving a few half-humans behind, but they did not understand how to truly ensnare a soul like Crawly did. The serpent’s work was almost beautiful, by comparison. It was clever, and methodical, and painstakingly thought out. And if Crawly’s whelps walked the Earth, Aziraphale thought, they would not be things of want or cruelty, but of burning curiosity like the demon himself. 

(Aziraphale never asked Eden’s serpent whether he had fathered children, however, like so many of the demons of the early days - even when the topic of nephilim came up, several centuries later. It had seemed too personal a question. And they were only just back on speaking terms, after Sodom and Gomorrah). 

.

The angel and the demon alternated wildly between wanting to seek one another out and avoiding one another entirely. They talked whenever they bumped into one another - which happened every dozen decades, because the human population was small - but they tended to fall out whenever conversation turned to anything serious.

Despite their differing views on morality, they both agreed that smiting and discorporating one another just for the sake of it was probably a waste of effort. Instead, they agreed to stick to different cities and concentrate on their own business. And, when their paths did cross, they exchanged a few pleasantries and kept their conversations light.

Crawly’s initial reservations about interacting seemed to fade as the Earth became more crowded (and there was less chance of being spotted together). Aziraphale found himself grateful. He was increasingly in need of a familiar face as the years dragged on. It could be very lonely, being the only angel stationed in his little corner of Earth. Other Principalities passed through, from time to time, but Aziraphale was mostly left to his own devices. 

Finding someone to talk to was a constant struggle. He was able to talk with the humans, of course, but it was not often that humans that wished to talk about anything more than their daily struggles. (Quite understandable, considering they spent most of their time trying to stay alive). Then, even when he did find one who liked to discuss abstract concepts, the affiliation was doomed to be short-lived. A friendship with a human could last no longer than ten or fifteen years, before they realised that Aziraphale did not age. 

Touch was another matter. It was harder than the angel could possibly have predicted, stuck in a body that craved touch, with a soul that lasted through the ages. None of the humans he interacted with had anything to offer, in that regard. There were glancing touches, of course - handshakes, and pats on the back, and the occasional kiss as he parted from a friend - but the meaning behind the touch could not be truly genuine when the humans involved had no idea who Aziraphale really was. 

More than anything else, the angel longed for the companion that God had promised him. He wanted to be touched by someone who knew him and who could understand all that he had seen. 

He had stopped asking when he might receive a companion, however, after his first dozen reports back to Heaven. It had been annoying Gabriel and he kept getting the same answer, anyway. 

_Maybe soon. Not my department._

Crawly commiserated, to a degree, whenever they crossed paths. He seemed to understand the feeling of isolation - even if his response to it had been very different.

The demon was no longer the creature of boundless energy that Aziraphale had met, back in the garden. Earth had blunted the edge of his enthusiasm. It had made him cautious. It had given him cause to feign disinterest in those around him and use phrases such as ‘ _the human I’m pretending to be would…_ ’ to justify his actions. 

It was just a surface change, however. If Aziraphale spent enough time and coaxed the conversation along a bit, he would eventually be rewarded with a chink in the armour - and he could watch Crawly’s eyes brighten, his mouth pulling back into a smile as he expounded on some point or another. 

He got very invested in things, did Crawly - far beyond any of the other demons that Aziraphale had come across. (And rather more than most of the angels). When the great flood came, and the humans built their ark, the demon had railed against The Plan so bravely that Aziraphale had shied away from him, intimidated by the conviction of his words and the way they made him feel ashamed. 

It had not been his choice, the angel had pointed out, to drown the small corner of the world and start anew. He had petitioned against it before the council, but he supposed he had never dared to voice his dissent like Crawly. He had not been nearly so loud, nor so insistent. Unlike the demon, he had things to lose. 

Crawly had not listened to Aziraphale, when the angel had told him to keep his nose out of it. From the small village near the ark, the demon had selected a handful of families and struck out with them into the mountains. He had led them high into the passes as the rains kept pouring down. He had pushed them over rocks, and carried the little ones, and thrown away belongings behind them, snarling at them all to keep going but, in the end, the flood waters had climbed faster. 

From high in the heavens, Aziraphale had watched as the last of Crawly’s little tribe of humans had slipped below the waterline and the demon had clung to the last piece of exposed rock on the mountainside. He had watched as Crawly screamed at the sky, and cursed God and Heaven, and kicked things, and cried. Then, he had witnessed the demon relent, his shoulder’s sagging, his voice swallowed by the storm.

Crawly had stood there until the water reached his thighs, then he unfolded wings like oiled midnight and took off into the clouds. And Aziraphale had not seen him again for fifty years. 

.

It was in the city which would one day be called ‘Memphis’ that the angel eventually found him. 

Nestled in the lush Nile delta, the white walled city was a beautiful place. In the season following the river’s flood, it seethed with colour. Plants burst into bloom on the flat roofs of the city’s houses. Flowering trees blossomed, filling the air with scent. The surrounding arable fields became a series of jewel green squares against the pale of the desert, marked out along their edges by irrigation channels of blue and silver. 

When he had a chance, Aziraphale liked to climb up on the city walls and look down over it all - just as he used to look down over the garden, so many years before. That was not where he spotted Crawly, however. He found the demon deep in the centre of the city, in the marketplace. 

Marketplaces were always a very human experience and this one was no exception. The air was loud and smelly. Human voices rose in a cacophony of sound, punctuated by the noise of cattle and chickens. A stone mill was being run over grain, up near the top of the square and two men were haggling over the price of unbleached cotton. A child was crying in the arms of his mother. A young man was hanging out of a second story window, calling their daughter back inside, for a meal. 

It was a marketplace as it should be, Aziraphale thought; bustling and vibrant with life. Then, through the regular onslaught of noise, the angel found his ears suddenly attuned to the sound of a yelp. 

To overhear pain in a human city was not an uncommon occurrence. In a city this size, it was likely that some human would be harming another, somewhere. (Violence was one of their most immutable qualities). But this noise had cut at Aziraphale differently than any noise of pain he had heard in the past. There was something in it that was more than human. 

Turning on the spot, the angel tilted his head. The yelp had come from an alleyway, behind the grain grinder. It had been almost covered up by the noise - indeed, if Aziraphale’s ears had been more mortal, he would have missed it. Pushing his way through the crowd, the angel followed the direction of the noise, slipping behind the grain sellers and making his way to the mouth of the alley. There, he saw the source of the racket immediately. 

It was a brawl of some form. Three grown men were wrestling a fourth towards the wall - attempting to keep his lithe form under control as he bucked and writhed. The fourth man was putting up one hell of a fight. As Aziraphale watched, he managed to wrestle himself free of his attackers for long enough to punch one man in the ear and kick the second into the opposite wall. Then, as the third man leapt forwards, he swung out arm and sliced long nails through his cheek. 

With a roar of rage, the three fell back on him and the slender man disappeared for a moment before once more kicking free, cursing and hissing. And - with a jolt of recognition - Aziraphale realised what had been so familiar about the yelp he had heard from the marketplace. 

_Crawly._

The figure was more slender than he normally associated with the demon, and Crawly's trademark red hair had been shaved away. That was, perhaps, why the angel had not recognised him at first. That and the incongruous nature of the situation. Aziraphale would not have expected the Serpent of Eden to be writhing in the dust with what looked like a trio of mercenaries - but stranger things had happened, on Earth. 

Stepping forwards into the mouth of the alleyway, he craned his neck to get a better view.

Whatever Crawly had got himself into, he did not seem to be able to get out of it without using magic and, for some reason, he seemed unwilling to do that. Aziraphale was just considering stepping in when the demon gave an uproarious snarl and sank his teeth into the forearm of the man trying to pin him back against the wall. 

The mercenary howled. His friends paused and the moment gave the demon all he needed to leap forwards. He broke a nose and then an arm in quick succession - knocking the first mercenary back against the wall.

As the tide began to turn in the demon’s favour, a boy of about fourteen emerged from where he had been hiding, behind a basket, and tried to fight alongside Crawly - biting and scratching at the men. His attack was short-lived, however.

A well aimed kick from the largest of the three mercenaries sent the boy crumbling to the ground with a breathless whimper. The noise made Crawly turn, which gave the three advantage. The bearded one dealt him a startling blow to the side of the head. Then the largest of the men grabbed him by the throat, pressing him back against the alley wall. 

At this point, Aziraphale decided he had seen quite enough.

Stepping into the alley, he braced as much power into his voice as he could manage, and aimed it at the brawlers. (Hoping that the mercenaries would flee without him having to resort to a more visible miracle - because it was not guaranteed that humans in the marketplace outside would not notice). 

“Leave!” He shouted, with all the weight of Heaven behind him. 

The effect was as good as he could have hoped for. The three mercenaries tumbled over them selves in their attempts to run away. Their feet hissed against the sand and they were gone from the alley before Aziraphale’s voice had even stopped echoing - leaving nothing but clouds of dust in their wake. 

As they disappeared, Crawly stood up and turned to look at his rescuer. 

In the moment their eyes connected, Aziraphale was not sure the demon recognised him. The expression on Crawly’s face was strangely blank. Then, his forehead contracted, creases marking out a familiar frown. 

“Aziraphale…” he swayed slightly on the spot. “What in Satan’s name are you doing here?”

“Just passing through.” The angel glanced over, towards the boy who had been fighting alongside the demon. 

The child had run a few steps towards the other end of the alley and then stopped, eyes darting between the demon and the angel - clearly torn over whether to flee. On one hand, he seemed to hold some allegiance to Crawly. On the other, he was showing the appropriate level of fear towards someone who had just scared off three grown mercenaries. 

Aziraphale smiled and told him not to be afraid, but the boy just took another step away.

Crawly gave a dry bark of amusement. 

“Go,” he jerked his head towards the end of the alley. “Go on. Get back to the others and avoid the market for a time.” The demon turned back to face Aziraphale. “Leave me to thank our saviour.” The boy hesitated, looking as if he might protest. “Go!” Crawly hissed again."Away with you!"

Throwing Aziraphale one last terrified glance, the boy scampered off and the demon was left alone before the angel - lip bleeding, the skin around his neck raw. 

They stared at one another for thirty seconds. Then, taking a breath, Aziraphale stepped cautiously closer.

"Hello Crawly."

His eyes swept his counterpart.

It had been so long since they had seen one another that he could not actually be sure how much of the demon’s appearance he had forgotten and how much was just glamour. Crawly certainly appeared a lot younger, now, than he had in the garden. The shape of him was barely more than adolescent. If he had been a human, Aziraphale would have placed him at nineteen - grown in length of bone but not yet filled out. His limbs were adult limbs, but there was a delicateness about his neck and torso that made him look boyish and a bit vulnerable.

The rest of the demon’s appearance was fairly expected, given the geography and cultural norms of the time. He was shaved from head to hips and wrapped in a grubby loincloth - dark, of course. The remnants of several-days-old kohl lingered around his upper eyelids. The outside of the lower were marked with green, which set off the gold of his eyes rather alarmingly. Lifting his bloody chin, Crawly considered Aziraphale, then his mouth widened into a wry smile. 

“Hello Aziraphale. I don’t imagine you’d want my thanks, in reality, would you?”

Aziraphale glanced at the entrance to the alleyway.

Nobody from the marketplace had come to interrupt them and, for that, the angel was grateful. He suspected that if anyone else were to appear right now, Crawly would flee. There was a nervous tension in the way the demon was standing. He looked aggressive and angry - not his usual self at all. 

“Are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, ignoring the demon's previous statement. Crawly was only saying it to be inflammatory. They both knew what boys offered as ‘thanks’ down dark alleyways in this part of the white walled city. “Did the blow affect your vision at all?" He asked. "Perhaps you should sit down?” 

“It’s just a body. It will mend.”

“I suppose," Aziraphale conceded, "but it must be unpleasant.”

“No more than I can take.”

A few seconds passed.

Crawly did not move. He just swayed slightly and watched Aziraphale, that wry smile still in place - tension still framing his every line. He looked as if he were going to run at any moment. Run, or grow claws and fangs, reach across the distance, and eat Aziraphale alive. The angel was not sure which. 

It was odd, he thought. He had never felt frightened of Crawly, before. This was the first time there had been that sort of unease between them. Up until their last meeting, and the Flood, things had been very civil. 

“Are you sure you are okay?” He tried again. 

He wanted quite desperately to close the gap and check that the demon’s injuries were not serious. He knew Crawly was not his to worry about - not his charge, or his friend, or his colleague - but the demon was the only familiar thing in his world and there was something strangely proprietary tugging away, in the pit of his stomach. In some strange, selfish way, Aziraphale _needed_ Crawly to be okay. 

Perhaps some of it came across in his eyes because, after another few seconds, Crawly curled a lip and let his shoulders relax. The tension fled his body and the alleyway. He was not going to run, Aziraphale realised, with a surge of relief. He was not going to attack. 

“I’m fine,” the demon hissed at him, and the angel was relieved to hear that his voice was something closer to its usual tone. “Don't fuss…” 

He was in a terrible mood, Aziraphale thought - though he supposed that was to be expected after being set upon by three violent humans. The angel supposed that the reason the demon had not used magic was to maintain a cover, with the boy. 

Reaching into his pocket, Aziraphale withdrew the small square of cotton he carried around, to wipe his hands clean or to offer to humans in need. He offered it out, to the demon, but Crawly ignored it and wiped his bloodied chin on the back of his forearm, instead. Then, he turned his attention to the alley around them. 

Scanning the ground, the demon kicked at the dust for a moment, then his eyes fell on the basket that the child had been hiding behind. Gathering himself, he limped over, and crouched down to scratch around in the dirt.

Aziraphale could see every one of his vertebrae protruding sharply from the back of his skin as he did so. A great number of his ribs, as well. He was very thin, the angel thought, worriedly. He should be taking better care of himself. Even if angels and demons could will their bodies to survive, without food, it was surely not healthy to let them suffer.

Eventually, Crawly gave a grunt and straightened up from behind the basket. He was clutching a small leather pouch in his hand. 

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked, curiosity getting the better of him. 

Crawly shook the pouch and it jingled - the tell-tale sound of the local coinage. By the sounds of it, not an insignificant amount. 

“Oh, did those men attempt to steal it from you?” 

The demon eyed him. “Not exactly.” 

“I see.” Aziraphale squirmed slightly. He knew he shouldn't ask, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Did you attempt to steal it from them?” 

Crawly held his eyes for a very long moment. 

“No, Angel. I earned it.”

“ _Oh_.” 

It was the sort of ‘oh’ that would end conversations, with most people. But Crawly was a demon. His tolerance for shame was higher than most. As Aziraphale felt his cheeks redden, trying desperately not to think about what his counterpart might be doing down dark alleyways, to earn a pouch full of silver, Crawly just watched him steadily. 

“We had an arrangement,” he said, eventually, “which they broke. They decided not to pay. When I objected, they decided not to suffer me to live, either.” 

Aziraphale eyed him. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. You did not break my skin, or scare my boy.” 

The angel’s eyes darted off towards the end of the alleyway, where the child had run. His boy?

The question was clearly written in his eyes. 

“Not mine by blood,” Crawly hissed, sneering as he took a step closer. “No need to cast him down to Hell. He already has a Hell up here, all his own.” The demon eyed him. “This city is full of unwanted children, Aziraphale. Their families cannot feed them, so they look after themselves. I offer them coin - the opportunity to sell secrets rather than selling their bodies - and in return they give me access to the darkest spaces of humanity.” Crawly curled a lip. “Nobody sees more of humanity than my children.” 

Closing the rest of the distance between them, the demon came to stand before the angel, slightly off to his left. His expression was not tense or aggressive any longer, but he still wore his sheen of youth like an iridescent armour. It was almost impossible to see his real corporation through it - through the smooth plane of his stomach and the slender lines of his arms, the sharp edge of his collarbone and the ridge of his throat. 

“You think it’s grotesque,” he whispered, elongating the word until it was no more than a hiss.

“They’re children, Crawly,” Aziraphale muttered, trying to keep the disgust to a minimum. “They shouldn’t be living such a life. A life of theft... and deceit. The things they must see...”

“Do you think they are here by choice?” 

“Well, no, but there must be some other way.”

“ _Some other way_?” 

“Yes.”

Crawly gave a snort.

“Enlighten me, Aziraphale of the Eastern gate… What is this ‘other way’? Where is this perfect society, where all men are equal and shelter is free for all? Where is this Kingdom of Heaven?"

Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed. 

“That’s not what I-,” he stammered. “I never meant that there was one simple solution, Crawly, I just-, I don’t-,” He cleared his throat. “You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“Perhaps we should just drown them all, again?” The demon’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Start over. Hope humanity does better next time...” 

The angel looked away. 

The Flood. Would it always come back to the Flood? He had not wanted that death, that pain. He had asked the others if maybe they oughtn’t to stop - but he should have gone further. He should have thrown himself before Her and begged mercy. The memory of Crawly, clinging to that mountainside, screaming, would be etched into his mind forever.

“You know I never wished for any of that,” he muttered to the demon, quietly. 

“And yet it came to pass. How powerless we both are, really…”

“You have power over what you do.”

Crawly took a step towards him. 

Aziraphale fought the urge to flinch.

“Do you think, if I left this place, the same thing would not continue to happen? Do you think that this same thing does not happen to children in cities all over this world?” The demon bared his teeth - the movement making him look instantly less human. “I do not create evil, Angel, any more than you create good. Humanity is what it is. We can only fold it back on itself, for our own purposes. Those boys will be safe, while I live among them... The young ones will survive off what I provide, selling secrets. The older ones will live long enough to decide what to do with their bodies. None of them will go hungry, tonight. And I will use what I learn to make those who deserve it burn a little sooner, in Hell...” 

He was close enough for Aziraphale to smell him - a heady mix of woodsmoke, and cedar, and sandalwood, and sweat. Turning his head, the angel let his eyes fall to the demon’s neck, to the stripe of oil he had clearly anointed himself with, earlier that day. It was glistening slightly. All of his skin was glistening, slightly. It was a hot day. 

“I work within my means, Aziraphale,” Crawly hissed, the edge leaving his voice, his anger abating. “Just as you do.” 

Aziraphale shivered. The combination of the intensity of the conversation and their proximity had caused a strange little twist inside of him - down in that same place he had felt the proprietary need to check that Crawly was okay. It was an uncomfortable feeling, almost an ache. 

When he looked back up, he found that his counterpart’s expression had softened, slightly. 

“What brings you to my city, anyway?” the demon asked, a touch gruffly. His unblinking eyes slid between the angel’s own. “I thought you were based further south, for a time.”

“I was, but the regional governors are grumbling,” Aziraphale answered, eager to talk about something that was not the flood, or the moral arguments for solicitation by necessity, or their relative failings as guardians of this world. “The Pharaoh is worried about looking weak and I am worried that sanctions and civil unrest will interrupt this year’s grain harvest. There are few stores left in my region after the last drought. My people would go hungry.”

The demon gave a soft noise, at the back of his throat. 

“Sounds shit.”

“Yes,” the angel sighed. “We lost a great number of children three seasons ago, to a fever, and famine would kill off most of the rest. The population would stagnate and that would lead to regression, as it always does. They’d been coming along so well, with documenting things and the development of prose.” He looked down. “It would be a terrible shame to lose it all. Not to mention all the suffering…”

A few seconds passed. 

Crawly tilted his head. 

“I’m sorry about your humans.”

“And I about yours. I'm glad they have you.”

The demon lifted one dark eyebrow. Aziraphale half expected him to progress to snarling, or mocking, but he did not. And, slowly, the angel's heartbeats - which had leapt up in his chest - returned to normal. 

“I've not been able to do much for mine, these last few months," he continued, after a pause. "I'm rather at my wits' end about it." He wasn't quite sure why he was telling Crawly such a vulnerable detail but it was as if, now they'd started talking, the words were pouring out of him like water. "I need to figure out some way of ensuring they don’t starve to death, this winter. And without miracles. Gabriel doesn’t like it when we mess around with sustenance. Or water. He says those things are to be saved for big occasions, you see? Messages from Above. Great religious revelations. I hardly think my humans' hunger would count."

Aziraphale stared gloomily at the ground.

"So you're here to find a human solution?"

"Yes, but so far i've been unable to figure out how to alter the situation without showing my hand."

"Mm."

“The distribution of grain stores seems to be tied into local family politics and that really isn't my strong suit.”

“You don't say...”

“I’m not conversant with any of the local magistrates. I do not know who holds the stores north of here, or who is shipping out to the east these days. Or trade routes.” Aziraphale sighed. "It's maddening."

A long few seconds passed in tense silence. 

“You know,” Crawly said, his tone suddenly very light. “I heard that the pharaoh’s master of grain had a shipment coming up from Waset, in April. Huge harvest. Enough to cover the city for three months.”

The demon was halfway through the statement before Aziraphale realised that it was more than a commiseration - that Crawly was sharing information, vague as it was.

He blinked at the demon in surprise.

"I... I beg your pardon?"

“It was _meant_ to be going to the royal stores," Crawly continued, airily, "but apparently, the Master of Grain arranged for it to be lost en-route. Rumour has it, there is a meeting arranged in two days time... one where private investors might hear a little more about the matter. All very hush-hush, of course." The demon's unblinking golden eyes raised to fix on him. "Very exclusive. Wouldn't do to talk about it to just anyone. But if a person was interested, they could make introductions through the inn-keep at that place with the cockerel on the sign. You know the one... just across from the shrine to the cat-god?"

"Oh." Aziraphale blinked at his counterpart. “I don’t... I'm not entirely sure what... what you’re suggesting."

“Well,” Crawly pulled a face. “It wouldn’t be the first time that an uncharitable soul had had a change of heart, and turned his ways from self-interest and evil... would it?” Scuffing a foot through the dust, his eyes finally slid off of Aziraphale's and onto the alley wall. “Then again, I might have solidified the merchant’s will to greed, by that point - helped him shift the grain to the west of here and make himself very rich in the process. If he listens to me, he’ll be able to afford that villa on the hill that he has been coveting... and keep his pretty little mistress. It wouldn’t be a hard job to convince him." His eyes swung back over to Aziraphale. "Then again... he is full of doubts about his immortal soul... I imagine the outcome would really depend on which of us gets to him first.”

“I imagine it would..." 

They watched one another. 

Aziraphale found his chest filling up with a strange warmth - a strange need to bridge the narrow gap between them and enfold Crawly in his arms. Just for a moment. Just to show that he was grateful. Nobody would see, he told himself. And even if they did, they would think nothing of it. It was a normal human thing to do - hugging.

And, at the thought, the warmth began to seep back out of him.  _Human_ , Aziraphale repeated to himself. Hugging was a _human_ thing to do. He and Crawly were not human. They were an angel and a demon and there was no Heavenly reason for them to share physical connection in that manner. It would be foolish of Aziraphale to indulge in it. And improper. 

Blinking rapidly, he stepped backwards, away from the demon, folding his hands behind himself.

Crawly turned his attention to the small leather pouch at his waistband, pretending not to have noticed. 

"Well," the angel cleared his throat. "That is a rather interesting rumour. My thanks for sharing it."

"No bother." The demon doubled checked that he'd secured his coin purse then looked back up. His voice was light - as if they hadn't just had an argument and made up, then shared a strange moment. “Walk me back to the market?” 

Aziraphale nodded.

“Of course.” 

They took the long way back to the market. Heading up around the square, they weaved inbetween the human stalls, eyeing the merchandise and discussing Aziraphale's plans over the coming years - where he was intending to be and where Crawly should avoid, if they were to continue taking a marked disinterest in one another’s work. Eventually, their path took them back to where they had started. 

“Well,” the angel said, coming to a halt with a sheepish smile. “Here we are, again.”

“Here we are.” Crawly swallowed and turned to him, eyes strangely emotive. “Listen, I should go,” he muttered. 

The angel frowned. 

“Why?” 

“The boys are back. They’re over by the fruit stalls, watching us. They’ll be wondering what something like me has to say that holds the attention of a high born man, cut in fine cotton.”

The angel looked down at his clothes. They were indeed much finer than Crawly’s - the softest that he could find, though simply tailored. There were pleasures the angel had started allowing himself, in the world, to replace those he could not have. Nice clothes were one of them. Food was another. He lived a comfortable life, for the most part. 

Looking back up, at his opposite number, the angel had a strange urge to tell the demon to leave the boys for a night, to come back to his rooms at the inn and rest. He wanted to give Crawly a bath full of hot water, to wash his skin free of the streets. He wanted to feed him a good meal and wrap him in clean clothes, and let him sleep away the rest of the season in a soft bed. He wanted to give him something - and it didn’t matter, for a moment, that the demon could find all of these things on his own. 

They watched one another for a moment. Then Aziraphale looked away. 

“You’ll be careful out there, won’t you?” He asked, trying to keep the tone light. 

Crawly curled a lip.

“I always am.” He held a hand out, palm up. “Pay me, won't you? Or they’ll ask questions."

Aziraphale did not protest - just conjured a silver coin and placed it, face-down in the demon’s palm.

Crawly closed his fist over it, then leant in. 

“And kiss me goodbye. On the cheek, not the mouth. Because you are grateful,” he told the angel, “but I am beneath you.”

There was a challenge in his gaze. Not anger, but something that Aziraphale could not quite place.

He did as he asked, but he softened the movement, staying Crawly's chin with a thumb before he pulled away. 

“Crawly?” 

The demon frowned minutely. “Yesss?”

“Tell your children that the cook at the inn where my rooms are leaves yesterday’s stew out, in the southern alley, just before midnight. Old bread too. And they need give nothing of themselves in return.” 

Pulling back from his grasp, Crawly glared. 

“And what will happen to them when you leave, and the cook no longer feedsss, and they have no living?” 

“Is a reprieve not worth anything? Even if it is not forever?” 

The demon’s eyes darted between his own.

“It’ss almosst worssse.”

“Do it as a favour?” Aziraphale asked. “For me?”

A long pause. 

Crawly clenched his jaw, and then nodded. 

“Fine," he spat. 

"And Crawly?"

The demon looked up at him, golden eyes fixed directly on his own. 

"I'm sorry. About the flood." Crawly's forehead creased, the pupils of his eyes widening, ever so slightly. For a moment, Aziraphale felt a flicker of fear again. Then it dwindled into something else. A familiar ache. An almost-longing. "I really am," he whispered.

Crawly looked away.

"I know you are, Aziraphale..."

They stood in silence. Then, giving a soft noise which might have been a sigh (or equally a hiss of disgust), the demon turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowds like smoke.

Aziraphale did not spot him again until he cleared the crowds - emerging at the far side of the square, where the two street children were waiting. The older of the two teens took the pouch of coins from the demon and exchanged a few words. The younger pressed himself tightly against Crawly's side, all long limbs and grateful eyes. Aziraphale saw the demon nudge the boy roughly away, making a show of teeth, but it was just a show. When some soldiers made an appearance at the lower end of the square, all three figures skittered off the same direction. 

.

The sneak thieves and street boys of the white walled city did come to the inn - right up until the cook died of old age, fifteen years later. By that time, the boys had a new ringleader, and the inn was being run by the cook’s son. He had learned by his father’s charitable example, however, and he still left stew and old bread out every night. 

The angel and the demon had long since moved on, by this point. The angel, to the coastal towns along the north of the country. The demon in the same direction, but a few years later and at a safe distance. 

The world changed but stayed the same.

.


	3. 1300 BCE, Tyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another 1000 years, another city, another chance encounter. A friendship is formed. Traditions are begun.

**1300 BCE, Tyre**

.

Standing in the quiet of a temple, Aziraphale had always found it easier to say his prayers. It should not matter where he spoke to God - he was an angel, after all, and his words would always have a path to heaven - but there was something nice about praying in the spaces that the humans prayed. It felt as if his wishes had company, something to travel alongside, on their way to the Almighty’s ear. 

Whether that made them more or less likely to receive her attention, Aziraphale did not know. Certainly, he felt as if most of his requests went unanswered these days. Or, perhaps, like his request for a companion - they were to be granted, but not until some time that She saw fit. It was one of the mysteries of the universe, he thought, kneeling on the white stone floor. Did praying in the face of no answer make him more devout, or just a fool? 

It was the same question the humans asked, he thought, lowering his hands and looking around at the beautiful church that Earth’s creatures had built. They were not so very different, really.

Aziraphale sighed, turned his head towards the door.

Outside, in the streets, a festival was kicking into gear. Distant drums mixed with tinkling percussion, cut with the sound of merry human voices. It was a feast day of some local god (a different god than that worshiped in this pagan temple) and the people were coming out in their droves, to worship.

They would be dancing and celebrating into the night, thought Aziraphale, fondly. He might go along and watch for a while later, after he had attended to the papers he was meant to be translating. His work as a scribe was mostly a front, but he felt the need to commit to it, to keep himself sane. And he knew nobody in the city to celebrate with, yet. He had only moved here a few weeks’ previous. 

Pressing a hand into the cool stone, Aziraphale pushed himself up to his feet, and gathered his tunic around him. The air inside the temple was cold, but it would be warmer outside in the sun, he assured himself. And he could control how warm his body felt anyway, if he spent a bit of magic. (He had long since given in to allowing himself such comforts. Earth was such a physical place. It was only once Aziraphale had let himself eat and drink and take part in the physical aspects of life that he had really come to appreciate the depths of humanity - and a lot of their motivations). 

Picking his way through the large, square room, Aziraphale made his way towards the exit. His movements did not stir notice from any of those worshiping - not the priest, standing near the far window, nor the young scholar, poring over his books. He moved with miraculous silence, his bare feet soundless on the stone. At the exit, he picked up his sandals and slipped outside, taking a deep breath in as he did so.

It was a fine day. The sky over the city was clear, the sun’s rays warm enough to drive the cold from his body. Tilting his head back, Aziraphale took pause to enjoy the sensation, to inhale the promise of the season, before looking down into the street below. 

The temple had been built on one of the rises of the city, halfway up a long avenue. From the front steps, he could look down and see the colourful shapes of humans gathering in an open square. To the right, he could see where the road continued to slope upwards, to the fortress proper and the King’s temple. The angel preferred to do his worship here than in the great citadel. The plain stone room was beautiful enough to sustain his worldly appreciation, and simple enough that the hypocrisy did not grate. It had been built for a different god than he prayed to, but no temple had yet been made on earth for the God Aziraphale knew. Her Name remained hidden to all, for now. That was part of the plan, he had gathered. Part of Her great ineffability. 

The word made him smile slightly, and think of Crawly. Then, almost as though he had conjured the demon from his mind, he heard a familiar lilt, coming from the side street below. 

The angel frowned.

It couldn’t be. He had just been thinking of the demon and imagined it…

Making his way across the narrow stair, Aziraphale peered down the side street and found two shapes standing in the lee of the temple building, both wrapped in the white robes of temple acolytes. One figure was small, a girl of no more than sixteen with black hair wrapped back in a neat knot. The second figure was far taller, indiscriminate in age, but identifiable by waves of tumbling, flame red hair. 

The angel’s stomach did a happy little wriggle inside of him. It _was_ Crawly! 

It had only been thirteen years since they had seen one another last, but it gave him great pleasure to see Crawly here, in this city that he had come to quite by chance. It felt almost like providence - though, he shouldn’t think that, he reminded himself, staying the desire to run over and approach the pair. There was no such thing as divine intervention, when it came to demons. And Crawly looked as if he were working, besides. If anything had brought the demon here, Aziraphale reminded himself, it was Hell’s orders, not God. 

Careful not to draw attention, Aziraphale peered along at the two figures, the demon and the girl, trying to hear what they were discussing. They were too far away, however. He only got the gist of their conversation once the girl had stood and clasped Crawly’s hand.

Reaching up, she pulled the binding that held her hair free, and dropped it to the floor, then she reached down and grabbed a small bag from where it had been lying at her feet. Throwing it over her shoulder, she turned and fled the temple, her footsteps light - the footsteps of someone running towards something, rather than away. 

Aziraphale frowned, indignation rising within him. 

Breaking the cover of the temple steps, he strode over towards the demon, who only looked up as he came within hailing distance, golden eyes brightened as they fixed on his face. 

“Hello, Aziraphale,” he grinned, in recognition. “I heard you were loitering around these parts. How are you?”

“What was that about?” Aziraphale demanded, not bothering with introductions. “What did you just tempt her to do?

The demon eyed him, a smile playing around his mouth. 

“Oh, she was well on her way already. I just gave her a little nudge out the door.”

“You tempted her to abandon her faith,” Aziraphale accused.

“I tempted her to abandon her order,” the demon corrected. “Her faith is her own business.”

The distinction between faith and religion was not lost on Aziraphale. Usually, he would have pointed out such a thing himself. In his anger, however, he had sort of blurred the two together. 

“But why?” He blustered, trying to cover up the lapse. “I doubt one human would help you make up a quota, so why manipulate her life in such a way? Surely there are greater uses for a demon, in a city of this size?” 

Crawly took a step towards him - the gauzy fabric of the acolyte’s robe swirling out behind him.

“Perhaps,” he admitted, one long-fingered hand thrown out to the side. “But her absence will make my work within the church that much easier.” 

“So you would ruin her future to ease your cause?”

Crawly eyed him. 

“If I did, would it sssurprise you?” His voice was half a hiss. “What is one human life to the likess of usss?”

Aziraphale bristled. 

The arrogance of it. The petulance. 

Suddenly, he wanted to push Crawly back against the wall of the temple - wanted to glare into those golden eyes and tell the demon that he was wrong and that that they should treat human lives with more respect. He wanted to shout at him. And he wanted to throw his arms around him, too - wanted to breathe in the familiar scent of Crawly’s skin and feel recognition warm him. 

The last thought had no place inside an angel. It should have had no place even if it had been a thousand years since they had last seen one another. 

Aziraphale found his mind lingering on it, nonetheless. 

He was so angry at Crawly. And so very glad to see him. 

“The girl is heading to her aunt’s house, in the north,” the demon offered, eventually, after Aziraphale had scowled at him for at least half a minute. “She’s meeting her lover there. She’ll be ostracised forever and the order will be embarrassed - and her lover's family will be all the poorer for her leaving - but your girl will be happy, if that’s any consolation? Surely, a small evil, in the greater scheme of the world?”

It sounded a lot more like good than evil, Aziraphale thought, eyeing the demon - though he was sure there was a flip side to the story. (Probably whatever Crawly was up to, within the church. Having spent a few weeks visiting the place, he suspected it was something to do with the priest. The man seemed a prime target for corruption and bribery). He did not ask, however. As he looked into Crawly’s eyes, all of the anger began to slip away and he realised he did not want to know. 

They had spent the last however-many years not looking too closely at one another’s work. They could go a bit longer. 

“I still think it was highly irresponsible,” Aziraphale grumbled, flushing at his own pompous tone. 

Oh, he always sounded like such an idiot when he backed out of their arguments. He sounded like such an idiot that it was almost worth doubling down, and giving Crawly a proper fight… but that would inevitably lead to talk about morality and God - and that would lead them to disagree, and Crawly to leave, and Aziraphale did not want that. He did not want that at all. 

Shuffling one foot through the dust, he watched his counterpart watch him.

“Are you in town for the festival, then?” The demon asked, after a pause - slipping off the subject of temptations with the practiced ease of a tempter.

Aziraphale shook his head. 

“No. Work, actually. I arrived two weeks ago, but I’m due to stay for quite a while.”

“Lots of _good deeds_ planned?”

“Naturally.” 

Clasping his hands behind him, the angel let his eyes travel, again, over the demon’s attire - marvelling at how easily Crawly changed how he looked, to fit the world. 

He was dressed in the robes of one of the temple acolytes, today, and his corporation was shaped to match the societal requirements for such a role. He was still long and lean, much as he always had been, but any attempt at masculine characteristics ended there. The lines of his neck and shoulders appeared more delicate - his waist narrower than Aziraphale had seen it in many years. The faint curve of breasts showed through the white cotton of the acolyte’s robe. The red-pink of his nipples matched that of his lips. 

“You look, um…” Aziraphale cleared his throat and forced his attention back up, to the demon’s face. “You look well.” 

Crowley threw his head back, dramatically. 

“I know. A six hour shift in the mid-day heat and her hair is still perfect. What is her secret? It must be sorcery.” 

_Her_. 

Right. Okay. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat. 

“Are you in town for the festival?” he asked, politely.

“No.” Crawly smirked at him. “Work, actually.” The mirroring of Aziraphale’s own words was not lost. “I leave tomorrow. But I thought I’d catch the festivities on my way out. I hear the dancing, up in Sidon, isn’t quite as good.” 

It was a little nod to their tradition of letting one another know where they were going to be - in order that they might avoid one another. Today, however, Aziraphale found himself actively _not_ wanting to avoid Crawly. He found himself wanting to ask her to stay and talk - to sit on the church steps and tell him all that she had seen, in the years since their last meeting. He felt the need to prolong their interaction - to scrape some companionship from their usually distant relationship. 

“I almost didn’t recognise you, you know?” he told her, nodding at the white robes. “Not your usual colour. Thought you were one of the temple girls.”

Crawly quirked an eyebrow. 

“Well, that was the desired effect…”

Of course it was. What a stupid thing to have said. 

“Well. It’s very nice,” Aziraphale offered. Then cringed again. 

Crawly’s smile twitched wider. 

“Thank you.”

“You always look very nice, I mean.”

Crawly’s smile spread wide enough to dimple a cheek and throw a fine network of lines around her eyes.

Turning his gaze down, Aziraphale busied himself fussing over one of his sleeves. When he finally looked up, he found Crawly still watching him, not offering a single comment to make the situation less awkward. 

If he had any sense, Aziraphale thought, he would leave now and hope that the next time they met - in thirteen or thirteen-hundred years - he would be feeling a little less maudlin and lonely. But that was unlikely, he reminded himself. Loneliness only seemed to travel one way, on this Earth, and he was starting to lose hope that Heaven would ever send him a companion, to lessen it. 

Across the way, Crawly finally cleared her throat, breaking the silence.

Raising a hand, she passed it roughly over herself, causing the fabric they were wrapped in to abruptly change colour and style. Instead of the demure but translucent dress of a temple acolyte, Crawly was suddenly wearing the complicated wrapped dress of one of the local nomadic tribes. 

There was both more skin and less body on show. As she stepped forwards and Aziraphale glimpsed up to mid-thigh, the angel wondered if human society would consider Crawly more or less clothed than she had been, before. Earth’s changing customs were very confusing. The angel often found himself left behind.

“There. Much more me.” The black and purple cotton of their new clothing trailed merrily behind her as she wandered across the last few feet between them. “Never went in for the coquettish virginal routine.”

Aziraphale tried for a smile. 

“It’s still very nice.” 

Crawly looked delighted.

“You’re being very complimentary,” she murmured, reaching out to smooth the wrinkled shoulder of his tunic. “Considering how righteously angry you were, with me, just a few minutes ago.”

“Perhaps I'm trying for a bit of ineffability?” Aziraphale suggested, dryly.

The demon chuckled, dropping her hand to her side. 

They watched one another for a few seconds, then Aziraphale let out a long sigh. 

“I’ve not had a proper conversation in about three months,” he admitted - not sure why he was admitting it, but feeling immediately relieved to do so. “My life in Jaffa was becoming untenable. I’d been there thirty years and the humans were starting to realise that I was not ageing, so I had to cut ties. I left it a bit late, so there were no safe introductions for me to make up here. I had to start over, completely. Didn’t know a soul when I arrived here, a few weeks ago. It’s actually been rather hard,” he finished, sheepishly. 

Crawly gave a soft noise, at the back of her throat. 

“Mm. I hate that part, too.”

A rush of gratitude welled up, inside the angel. Crawly did know, he thought, searching the demon’s expression. Crawly knew exactly what he had been suffering through, these last weeks, - travelling north along the coast, along caravan routes packed with families, all on his own. Crawly lived the same life. Had moved from town to town, identity to identity, for just as long as the angel had. 

Standing across from her, Aziraphale was filled with appreciation for the creature he had known these past two thousand years. His perfectly opposite counterpart - so good at her job, so perfectly unlike him. He appreciated her very much. 

He even felt as if the demon might have just had a point, regarding the temple girl. (He shouldn't think it. He shouldn’t doubt the value of structured faith. But sometimes he could not help himself). Perhaps it was better to spend such short years as a human had with a lover, rather than whispering unanswered prayers to silent, white walls.

“How often do you look like this?” He asked, to distract himself, eyes sweeping Crawly’s face.

It was rather a personal question. But the demon was in good spirits. And the topic was not so very far beyond the realms of professional curiosity…

The demon shrugged. 

“Less than a quarter of my time.”

“I see. Is it your choice, or your masters’?”

Crawly’s forehead tightened, but she did not frown. The movement was more out of surprise than offence, Aziraphale suspected. 

“Mine,” she replied, after a pause. “The ability was intended as a weapon, but how I use it is my own.” 

“And why do you use it?” The angel was curious. 

“Practicality, sometimes.” Crawly considered him. “There are occasionally situations where this form is more appropriate, to gain a person’s trust. And, in a more abstract sense... I guess I wanted to understand what it was like, to be seen this way.” She lifted her chin. A few strands of red hair fell out from the loose hood of her robe and rushed across her neck. “There is a strange dichotomy to being seen as a woman, in this world, you know… You are invisible, in many ways, but there are always eyes upon you. The world is both proprietary and dismissive, and I think that is a worthwhile thing to appreciate for creatures such as ourselves - who are neither male, nor female, but required to touch the souls of all, to do our work.” 

It was one of those moments where Crawly had surprised Aziraphale, with her perception. So of course she then had to add something crass, to counter it. 

“Also, men are idiots. Would do almost anything in the hope of a fuck.”

“Crawly-!”

The demon gave him a mischievous little grin. “Not that that necessarily requires a specific body.”

Aziraphale frowned at her, but his sternness didn’t last long. It was too nice having their little conversation, standing close to one another and bathing in the familiarity of not having to try too hard - to pretend that they were anything other than they were. 

“I’ve never tried to appear different to how I was sent down,” he admitted, realising that it was rather a failing, in the grand scheme of life experiences. “I don’t even know if I could.”

“It’s mostly just glamour,” the demon admitted. “A little bit of a shift, a little bit of magic… a lot of what people want to make of it. Right now, I call myself ’she’ because I feel more ‘she’. When that changes, I’ll change. Sometimes I’ll change how I look, too. Other times…” she shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just a physical thing, but I do enjoy the choice.”

It was about the only choice they had, Aziraphale mused, before reprimanding himself for thinking it. 

They stood for a moment, observing one another quietly. Then Crawly spoke again.

“I imagine you could see all of my shapes, if you tried.”

Aziraphale felt a rush of surprise. 

“I could?”

“Yeah. You know my magic." Crawly smiled and it was a tentative thing, this time - the mischief of earlier fading into something genuine. “I imagine you could pick it apart, if you wanted.”

_Look at me. See me._

It was a surprisingly intimate offer, thought Aziraphale, and certainly not one he had expected. It was Crawly reaching out of a hand, offering something more than the conversation they had become accustomed to, as opposite numbers. Something personal. 

A little cautious, but curious and pleased at the invitation, the angel reached a hand out, concentrating harder than he had, before. 

Feeling an angel or a demon, wrapped inside a mortal body, was like listening to music from behind a thick veil. Unbridled power and magic loitered just beyond the surface. Some of it made its way through. An existential tingling sensation. A magnetic pull; the reason that humans felt drawn to them, physically. 

Crawly was right, as it turned out. Aziraphale did know her magic. It was as easy as recognising a person’s handwriting in a letter, or their voice in a song. The angel could sense the lines of her power in the air around her form. And, concentrating hard enough, he began to feel which parts were intentional and which were the resting state of her - him - them - (Words, Aziraphale decided, could be woefully insufficient sometimes). 

Hooking his power into the edge of the glamour, the angel tugged at it and suddenly could see the whole of the demon. He could see the face she presented to the world alongside all of her possible shapes. And, underneath them, the shape Crawly had been sent up to Earth with, in the beginning. Great golden eyes and dark glossy scales. High cheekbones and copper hair, falling in waves around sharp collarbones. All together. All at once. All slightly different, but equally beautiful. All Crawly. 

An unnamable warmth burned in the pit of Aziraphale's stomach, to witness it all. It was a bit of that ‘knowing’ that he had longed for, for so long - that feeling of connection which the Earth denied him, through time and the impermanence of humanity. Caught up in the moment, he let his hand fall in, until the fingertips of his index and thumb brushed the demon’s cheek. Her skin was warm to the touch. 

Crawly flinched slightly at the contact but, as Aziraphale moved to pull his hand away, muttering a hasty apology, she stayed his retreat. 

“It’s okay. You can touch me.” Their eyes met and Aziraphale could still see the wide golden irises of the demon in the garden, alongside the more human eyes of her current form - still gold and slitted with black, but more subtly proportioned. Both sets of eyes were friendly. “Go on…”

“Okay.”

He had been granted touch so he took it - pushing aside any questions he had about whether or not he should and whether or not they were allowed this. 

It was no more than they had done in the garden, after all, all those years before. 

Leaning closer, he pressed a palm against the curve of Crawly's jaw, tracing his thumb around the slight damp of her lower lip, then down over her chin to the hard ridge of cartilage at her throat. He traced down from Adam’s apple to clavicle, then out to a shoulder, before finishing his exploration by tracing two fingers down the length of the demon’s arm and placing his hand, palm down, on top of the hand that Crawly had held out towards him. There, he felt his concentration shift away from the demon’s magic as their fingers curled around one another's. 

He looked up. The superimposition of the demon's various forms was gone. Crawly stood before him as she had a few minutes previous, slender and beautiful, and wrapped in dark cloth. 

“It’s a shame your lot don’t go in for touching more often, Angel,” she smiled at him - and, though her words sounded teasing, the only thing Aziraphale sensed was gratitude. He got the impression it had been a lonely few months for Crawly, too. 

Looking down, the angel watched their clasped hands. He knew he should let go, but he could not bear the idea of relinquishing the grip. It had been twenty-two years since he had held someone’s hand. It had been nearly two thousand since his palm had been flat against Crawly’s - that day they had compared bodies, high on the walls of Eden. 

There hadn’t been the slightest human implication to them touching, that day. Now, there was. Holding a hand meant something more, now - they had been down here too long for it not to. Holding a hand meant friendship, and caring about one another. And, though Aziraphale knew he should feel none of those things for the demon, he suddenly realised he felt them all the same. Crawly might be something like a friend, he thought, lifting his eyes to rest on the demon’s. He might be okay with that. 

“I need to head down to the city gate,” Crawly said, after a few moments had passed in companionable silence. “You could walk me, if you don't have anything else on?” 

“Yes. Of course.”

He expected Crawly to drop his hand as they set off, but the demon just shifted her grip and slid her fingers in between his, instead, before heading for the edge of town. Aziraphale wandered alongside her, glancing over every so often, wondering if this was a joke, or a trap, or a temptation. But it appeared to be nothing of the sort. If he really had to hazard a guess, he thought it might have been a kindness. 

Crawly guided them through narrow streets, towards wider ones, travelling parallel to the city walls. They talked of nothing in particular - about local customs, mainly, and what the demon had learned about the city that Aziraphale was about to make his home. They discussed the families who ruled the place, and the local politics, and tensions between the neighbouring Phoenician towns. They talked about the harbour and places that one could go, down there, to find decent wine. The demon shared a few details of temptations she had not got around to, during her time in Tyre and left it hanging as to what Aziraphale wanted to do about them.

Around the gates, they found festival celebrations already in full swing. Crawly teased him about having a dance, but Aziraphale remained adamant that dancing wasn’t really his thing, and eventually the demon relented, happy to watch the humans swirling around them, instead. 

Standing against the wall of an apothecary, they laughed at the human frivolity of it all and the angel hummed along to the music, even if he did not let go of the demon’s hand to join in the clapping - even when the timbrel struck up his favourite tune. They remained clasped together until the song ended, and then for some time after, as they headed on through the crowd towards the distant gate. It was only when they passed a man selling candied nuts from a bronze pot over a stove that their grip was severed. 

It was the smell of caramelised honey that caught Aziraphale’s attention, and he had looked over, distracted from their conversation, as they passed. As he looked back, he found Crawly watching him with that same amusement that had twinkled in her eyes, earlier.

He had rushed to make some explanation, blurting some nonsense about choosing to experience food alongside the humans in order to better appreciate the physical nature of the world. But, before he finished, the demon slipped her hand free of his and sauntered away. 

For a moment, Aziraphale had despaired at the loss of contact, but Crawly was no sooner gone than she was back, carrying a handkerchief full of warm, honied nuts. Moving to Aziraphale’s side, she offered the small package out and the slightly stunned angel had taken it with a stammered ‘thank you’. She had watched him taste one or two, (declining any herself), then slipped her hand back around Aziraphale's and the pair had continued to wander on, in the direction of the gate. 

It was a strange thing, the angel thought, as they walked along in companionable silence. The touch, and the offer to see her, and buying him the nuts had all been very blatant acts of kindness. Friendship had never been something they had alluded to, before - things had always been civil, but professional - but it felt a strangely natural bridge.

It felt incredibly normal, to be sharing the demon’s company in this way. Their human-shaped bodies felt very content, connected at the palms. They looked like any other pair wandering the city. Their shoulders brushed, every so often, and their voices alternated gently as they talked. And, though it was all a deviation from their usual pattern, Crawly did not question it. (For which Aziraphale was very grateful. He had no idea why they were suddenly doing this, only that it was nice and it had been a long time since he’d felt so known). 

“They never sent you your companion, then?” the demon eventually asked, as they reached the city’s inner gates and wandered through them. “I remember you asked for one, all that time ago. Someone to share it all with.” 

The angel eyed her, a little sadly. 

“No. Perhaps next century…” He turned his eyes back forwards again, towards the shimmering forms of the city guard at the base of the wall, busy stopping caravans to levy a tax. “Things are very busy in Heaven, right now. They’ve got a few major religions coming, from all of this. I imagine there’s a lot to work out.” 

His eyes travelled over the humans arriving into the city, towing carts and animals, all laden with goods to trade. They were all talking animatedly to one another, wrapped in colour, and enthusiasm, and the importance of their own stories; all completely unaware of any greater story arcs and probably much happier for it. They were so alive, he thought, almost enviously. They might only last a handful of years but, for those years, they were vividly, painfully alive. And together. 

“Maybe soon,” he sighed, wistfully. 

“Mm.”

The angel looked around and found the demon watching him, thankfully without pity in her eyes. The expression that was there, he could not read. 

“Suppose this is you, then,” he murmured, nodding up at the great wall of the city. 

Crawly glanced up, then back down. 

“Indeed. I require a conversation, with a city guard. Corruption does not spread itself,” she added, with a sanctimonious little nod. 

Aziraphale attempted a scowl, but the movement was ruined by the way his mouth turned upwards into a smile, instead. 

“Take care of yourself, angel,” Crawly murmured. Then, giving his hand a tiny squeeze, she wandering off towards the gate. 

Watching her go, Aziraphale marvelled at the lightness of her feet, and lamented the loss of her hand. He only realised he had not said goodbye once she was already out of sight, but decided against calling after her. There were lines to be observed, between them - Crawly was an adversary as well as a sort-of friend, and both of them had a lot to lose by being overly involved in one another’s activities. 

For now, he thought, he would have to be satisfied with a meeting every few decades and the occasional touch. Perhaps, the next time they met, they could go down to one of the inns that Crawly always seemed to know about and share a skin of wine together. He would like that, he thought, turning back to the city. He would like that rather a lot. 

.


	4. 33 CE, Golgotha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two friends make up after a fight, share a few drinks to deal with witnessing a crucifixion, and end up sharing a little bit more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: non-graphic description of a crucifixion, religious references.

**33CE, Golgotha**

.

The crucifixion outside Jerusalem was a moment of horror, and hatred, and blood; a dark punctuation after what had been such a hopeful time in the lands around Judea. The man who had brought the downtrodden hope had been strung upon a piece of wood, struck down in the prime of his life. He had been still young enough to cry out loudly, as they made him carry the cross to the place of his execution. He had been still strong enough to last for hours, after they had crushed the bones of his arms and legs. Bloodied and broken, but not bowed, he had hung in the sun while his family watched from below. 

The angel had watched, too. And, later, the demon. 

Crawly had been loitering in Jerusalem for the past ten years or so. Aziraphale had been able to tell as soon as he arrived in the city. One of the gates had borne the demon’s handiwork - the traces of some spell used to keep the city guard blind to nefarious comings and goings. As Aziraphale had passed beneath the magic-marred stone, he had placed his hand against the spell and unbound it. 

Cleaning up after Crawly was almost second nature, nowadays. It seemed that, everywhere Aziraphale went in the world, his opposite number had been there first. Crawly had slithered over all the Levant and up around the Mediterranean. While Aziraphale had had involved himself in the development of the Minoan civilisation, the demon had danced across the Greek mainland, spreading untold chaos in his wake. When work had taken Aziraphale further west, to Rome, he found Crawly’s magic already carved into the first buildings of the city. They had both been posted to the tribes of the north, and back down again, across the small sea, to the northern cities of Africa - Egypt once more, and further south. Then, they had both travelled back up to Galilee, one after the other, on their contradictory postings. 

They had both been back in the area for fifty years, now, but they hadn’t seen much of one another. This was unusual, nowadays. Since Aziraphale had decided they might be something similar to friends, a thousand years previous, they had started making more of their meetings than a few professional words. Sometimes, they took the time to share a drink together, and some stories from their travels. 

It had been rather lovely, actually, getting to know Crawly better. The comforting familiarity that Aziraphale had long felt around the demon had grown into a full blown attachment. Soon, Aziraphale found that there was no higher pleasure than feeling the demon slip up beside him in some marketplace, or inn, or the dock of some busy sea port, throwing a silly quip and offering to spend the afternoon wandering around the place, talking nonsense, before finding themselves an alehouse. 

Sometimes, they didn’t even bother with the wandering part. They just sat outside an inn, or under a tree outside the city, and drank and talked right into the night. It was incredibly nice having someone to talk to. The things they discussed - time, and miracles, and lands of the distant past - were things that no human could ever appreciate. It was a balm to Aziraphale’s soul.

The last thirty years had been a bit of a lull in their usual activities, however. Crawly had been distant - something that Aziraphale knew was half his own fault. They’d had an argument over the young prophet that they were both tracking. It had started with a throwaway comment from Crawly and caught flame because of an ill-considered retort by Aziraphale. Then, the disagreement had spiralled out of control, straight into territory that they usually avoided (morality, and theology, and The Plan). Some tense words and a good bit of hissing later, Crawly had stalked off without even finishing his wine, and they had been cool with one another since. 

Aziraphale was surprised, therefore, when the demon sought out his company on the hill outside Jerusalem. Surprised and a little irritated, because he was in no mood for a continuation of their fight. It all seemed a very pointless topic now the humans had sentenced the prophet to death. 

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger?” 

It was such a cold open that Aziraphale had had to bite back a retort. Remembering that there were people close enough to hear them, he had uttered something controlled, instead, and Crawly had muttered something back, and the conversation had stumbled on from there. 

They discussed the horrific act of the day, and the demon’s name change, (about which the angel was not entirely sure his counterpart was being serious) and Aziraphale let his eyes sweep over the demon, taking in the changes of the last thirty years. 

There weren't many. Crawly's eyes were perhaps a little more human in appearance, and he'd grown his hair back out. He was clothed in the traditional style of the local woman but wearing none of the anatomy that society would expect to accompany the role. The juxtaposition was not unusual, so Aziraphale didn't ask about it. Crawly always made a point of letting him know, now, if it was important.

As he documented the little changes to the demon's accent and vocabulary, conversation began to flow more easily, but Aziraphale still found himself tense. The little jibe Crawly had greeted him with echoed in his head, alongside phrases from their last argument. He found himself still quite annoyed at the demon. More than annoyed, actually, he found himself disappointed. Crawly was many things, but he had never been cruel, before. 

It was only when the demon winced at the sound of a nail being hammered through a hand that the angel began to realise his counterpart's glibness had not been malicious. It had been sarcasm for protection, at best. As the young prophet cried out, Aziraphale saw genuine distress lurking beneath his counterpart's usually cool, controlled exterior. Crawly hated this, the angel realised. He hated this pain, this anger. This was not the fate the demon would have chosen for the young prophet at all. 

Despite promising himself that he was not going to be the one to cave in their argument - despite having told himself over and over that he was right and Crawly was wrong - Aziraphale had reached out and rested a hand against the demon’s arm for comfort. And, while Crawly did not look around or acknowledge the motion, the angel felt him lean a bit closer. 

Touching like this, remaining in one another’s company, was a risk. Gabriel was due in town over the next few days and, as harmless as Aziraphale thought his association with Crawly was, he had a feeling that Heaven might consider the matter quite differently. The archangel was not due until after the crucifixion was finished, however, and that looked like it was quite a way off, yet. 

(Dirty human business, death, Gabriel had said, last time they spoke. He’d pop down for the miracles, later. Much more his cup of tea). 

So, Aziraphale let the demon lean against his arm, and wind long fingers into the crook of his elbow. He stood beside Crawly until the night had begun to fall properly, and those who had come to jeer at the prophet had begun to dwindle away, leaving only family and followers. Then, he stirred his opposite number from his melancholy. 

“Come on. Let’s go back to the town,” he suggested, gently. “We should leave them to their goodbyes.” 

It felt like too personal a moment to witness, and they both knew how it was going to end, anyway. 

Crawly nodded and the two of them wandered slowly down from the hill, over the cool ground, not saying anything. When they arrived at the city gates, Crawly noticed that his spell had been removed and threw Aziraphale a petulant look, but made no comment. Both masked by their powers, they slipped by the city guards unquestioned and wandered their way through narrow streets until they arrived outside a small inn. 

“Is this where you’re staying, then?” Aziraphale asked, as they came to a halt.

He had not really thought about which of them was leading, up until that point, but it turned out to have been Crawly, because the demon nodded. 

“Yeah. Come in for a drink?”

The angel hesitated. It was a risk, prolonging their interaction. A significant risk. But the sadness he had felt, ever since the young man had been brought before the Roman courts and sentenced to death, was suddenly overwhelming and Aziraphale found he didn’t want to be alone, yet. 

“Yes, thank you.” He nodded his head. “A drink would be nice.”

They made their way inside where a table was miraculously free right at the back of the common room. Paying the youth who was running back and forth from the cellars with a few heavy coins, the angel asked for their best wine and poured them both a cup when the boy returned.

Crawly swallowed his in a series of quick mouthfuls, and Aziraphale had to pour him a second so that they could raise their cups together. 

“To what are we toasting, precisely?” The demon asked, testily. 

The angel’s mind fell to the followers of the young man, sleeping in shifts on the frozen ground beside the cross - always one awake, so that the prophet would not be alone. 

“To hope,” he said, quietly. 

Crawly’s mouth twisted - a strange little movement.

“Fuck, Aziraphale…” he muttered, voice lower than usual and twice as harsh. “This is no time for hope.”

“I imagine this is exactly the time for it, actually,” the angel said, playing with the rim of his cup with nervous fingertips. 

He’d only had a few sips. He'd always made a point of not getting too drunk with Crawly. There was a lot of possibility, in drunkenness, for saying things that you didn’t intend to - and what Aziraphale did not intend to say to the demon was rather an extensive list. 

Foremost were the secrets of Heaven, which he was absolutely not supposed to share with a member of the opposition. Then there was the fact that he missed Crawly whenever they were apart. And that he was sorry about their argument. And that he had been wrong and the demon had been right. They should never have been using the young man for their own purposes. 

Five minutes passed in stoney silence. Crawly drank three more cups of wine and stared at the wall. Aziraphale finished one cup and sat, thinking for far too long about pouring himself a second. 

Eventually, the demon reached over and poured it for him, letting out a long sigh. 

“Listen, I was wrong, alright?” He muttered, as dark liquid sloshed over the brim, staining the wooden table beneath. “I was wrong and you were right. Happy?” 

Aziraphale looked up, blinking in surprise.

“Wrong about what?”

“What we argued about, before,” Crawly grimaced. “All that shite about Him giving the people something to aspire to, to teach them something that they could not learn through stories alone.” He waved a hand. “You know…”

“Oh,” Aziraphale’s forehead contracted. “I-,” 

“You were probably right,” the demon continued, pointedly not meeting the angel's eyes as he took another large swallow of wine. “About all of it. Seeing them out there, it’s obvious they have learned something. Even if it’s only a few of them.” 

“I don’t know,” the angel answered, in a small voice. “I think all they might have learned is pain.”

“Nah,” Crawly shook his head. “That’s just what love looks like, from the outside.”

“Crawly-!” Aziraphale exclaimed, caught off guard by the tender observance. 

The demon flinched and hissed at him. 

“It’s _Crowley_ ,” he reminded, glaring over the rim of his cup. “And fuck off, won’t you? I was just making a point. No need to make a big deal out of it… Stop looking at me like that!” 

“Okay. Sorry…” the angel kept watching, though, feeling very fond of his friend. The name change was going to take some getting used to, he thought, eyes tracing the demon’s tense face - still angry at being called out on his moment of softness - but he’d make an effort to remember. It clearly mattered, to Crawly - to _Crowley_. 

So many things mattered to the demon, Aziraphale thought. He cared about the young man who was dying out there, tonight. He cared about the humans on the ground around him. He cared about the small folk he encountered, in his fake lives, and the outcomes of his little plots. He was stubborn and a bit too brave for his own good, and he could never keep his mouth shut, and he could be very grumpy sometimes, and often crass - but he was doing his absolute best, thought the angel. He really was. And he could be really lovely, sometimes, in the moments where he forgot he was not meant to be.

“Stop it,” Crowley snipped, pouring another cup of wine. “Stop looking at me like that and drink something, you prick. I’m not getting drunk by myself, tonight. S'far too depressing…”

Aziraphale nodded. Then, on impulse, he picked up his own cup and drained it. Then, he lifted Crowley’s cup right out of his hands and drained that, too. Three swallows and done. He held the demon's surprised gaze the whole way through - then winced as he licked his lips at the end. 

“This is not good wine,” he commented, lamely. 

Crowley stared. Then an incongruous smile broke out across his face, fracturing the glare that had been festering there. A laugh parted the smile and suddenly he was looking away, chuckling, shaking his head as he poured them both another cup. The expression in his eyes was warm, even if they were a bit wetter than usual. 

Aziraphale found himself smiling too.

.

They settled into conversation, trading stories about the last thirty years. Aziraphale told Crowley about living in Samara, then meeting John the baptist. The demon told him that he had travelled with the young prophet’s entourage, in the north, listening to him preach. 

“He was good, you know.” 

“Yes. That was rather the point,” the angel replied. 

“No,” the demon rolled his eyes and sipped at his wine. “I mean, he was good _at it_. You know, the whole… he was good with people. If it had been anyone else saying what he said, nobody would have listened, never mind gotten all up in arms, but he was good at it. Should have turned his mind to business, rather than saving souls,” Crowley added, dryly. “Could have done that nonsense in his spare time. Would have probably been a lot more successful, in the end.” 

“Did you suggest that to him, while you were tempting, in the desert?” Aziraphale asked, then felt a little rush of nerves - not sure if he had gone too far. But the demon just gave a sad little exhale and shook his head. 

“Didn’t think of that one, angel. Perhaps, you should have had a go? We might have been able to talk some sense into him, together."

The angel smiled, over the edge of his cup. He doubted that rather a lot. He suspected that he and Crowley would probably make a complete hash of anything they tried to do, as a team. He was not a terribly good angel, in the grand scheme of things, and Crowley was a lamentable demon. The last time they had collaborated on anything, humanity had fallen from innocence and learned about the enormous, beautiful potential that they all possessed inside themselves. Aziraphale still was not absolutely sure which of them had been responsible for what part, and if any of it had really been truly good or evil. 

Best not to speculate, he mused, watching Crowley refill the flagon of wine with a wave of his hand, and pour himself another cup. 

The tip of the demon’s tongue was stained purple. Aziraphale wondered if he should tell him to slow down, then felt the impulse slide away again. Not tonight. Tonight, they needed this.

.

They drank downstairs in the common space until a group of young Roman soldiers appeared, a couple hours before midnight, and began to talk loudly about the executions happening outside the city. Crowley seemed to block out the first few minutes of their loud chatter but, as the conversation moved on to mocking impersonations, the angel had noticed his friend growing tense. 

Deciding it was better to avert damage than deal with it, he nudged Crowley’s arm and asked him if he wanted to go elsewhere, to drink. The demon had grumbled and told him that the whole city was packed with Romans. Unless the angel wanted to pop them back up to Gaul, they’d be stuck with them. 

“Well, why don't we finish the rest of this in your rooms?” The angel suggested. 

Crowley had thrown him rather a long look, at that, but agreed and the pair of them had withdrawn to his rooms, on the floor above, where the noise of the revellers below miraculously did not carry. 

As they arrived, the demon pulled a thick curtain over the window to block out the cool night breeze and wandered his way around the small square room, picking up a few candles and throwing them roughly down in front of Aziraphale. 

“It’s not much,” he had added, gesturing around at the place. “I’m not a great collector of material objects.” 

The angel thought of his own rooms, of the books and scrolls he had already amassed in just three months in the city - of the little boxes of snacks that he enjoyed and the stockpile of wines and ales, and the several changes of robes, for different occasions. Crowley’s dwelling had none of these things. The walls, surfaces and floor were bare. He did have a very beautifully carved bed. And a chair with a large number of plush cushions, set next to the window as if he liked looking out on the view. But the rest of the place was scrupulously clean and empty. 

“It’s probably a dreadful character flaw to collect lots of things you do not need, anyway,” Aziraphale bumbled at the demon, throwing him a smile, emboldened by the alcohol running through the veins of his physical body. “I have far too many things, really. It’s not very modest of me. And it's a terrible pain, each time I move.”

“Why don’t you just miracle it all from place to place?” Crowley asked, throwing himself down at a small wooden table.

The angel frowned, thought about it. 

“I suppose I wouldn’t like having to explain to Gabriel why I was spending my powers on such a frivolous activity.”

“Fuck Gabriel,” the demon said, raising his cup. 

Feeling very slightly rebellious, the angel raised his cup too - though he absolutely did not say the words aloud. (Or more than whisper them, inside his head). 

.

They sat in the semi-dark of Crowley’s rooms until the small hours of the morning. They talked about nothing, and about things long past. They discussed all the vague possibilities that the future might hold, too, and Aziraphale let the demon ramble on about all the things he could imagine - occasionally interjecting an idea or an opinion to keep conversation flowing. Anything to keep Crowley’s mind off of what was happening on the hill outside the city. Anything to ease the tension that appeared on the demon’s face when the air went silent and his mind was given time to dwell. 

Eventually, the noise of the guard changing over reached them through the window and the angel realised the time. It was late, he told his friend, forcing the alcohol from his system. He should go. He had to get all the way back across town, to his rooms, and prepare for the next morning’s activities. There were a few minor miracles to pepper around the city, before noon. They would go better if he prepared, beforehand. 

Crowley told him that he should take one of his cloaks. It was cold outside, with the sun gone down, and Aziraphale would not want to waste a frivolous miracle on keeping himself warm. Think of what Gabriel would say. The cloaks were made from perfectly good wool, anyways, and he had several. He would not miss the lighter one. 

Standing from his chair, Crowley walked over and selected the cloak he had been talking about. Carrying it back over, he draped it on the back of the angel's chair. 

They stood together, for a moment, looking down at it. 

“Thank you,” the demon muttered, eventually. 

“It’s your cloak,” Aziraphale replied - not knowing why he did so, because he knew perfectly well that Crowley’s thanks was not about the cloak. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

His friend fixed him with a slightly hazy stare. He was still very drunk, the angel realised. He had chosen not to sober up when Aziraphale had. It did not seem fair to ask why. There was pain in Crowley’s eyes and the angel knew that, once he left, the demon would have no distraction from his thoughts. If he needed the comfort of alcohol tonight then he should have it, Aziraphale thought, and not feel ashamed. 

He placed his hand on the back of the cloak, sitting over the chair. The wool was soft, of high quality. 

“Thank you, my dear,” he told the demon. 

“ _Ngk_...” Crowley shrugged, looking slightly uncomfortable for a second. Then his eyes made another pass over the angel’s face and he started speaking again, looking a little surprised as he did so - as if he hadn’t expected the words to make it all the way to his mouth. “You know, I was thinking, earlier, about how you asked God for a companion.” 

The angel raised an eyebrow. 

“You were?” 

“Uh, yeah…” Crowley flushed a little, cheeks pinking. “I supposed that, if I was your friend, I should be sorry that you never got one... But, in reality, I’m not. Suppose i’m grateful, instead.” His eyes came to rest on Aziraphale’s cheek. “If you had been given a companion, then he would have had you for comfort, tonight, instead of me.” 

It was a soft, genuine moment, and Aziraphale was not entirely prepared for the rush of affection it caused to well up, within him. His palm rose, to cradle Crowley’s cheek, just as it had done over a thousand years ago, in Tyre, on the day of that pagan festival. It was an instinctive movement of affection - for no more complicated a reason than he felt it coursing through him. Affection for this creature whose company he’d had, against the heavy weight of time.

Standing in the darkness of the demon’s spartan room, Aziraphale found himself strangely grateful that he was not standing across from some faceless, nameless companion as well. A companion sent by heaven, now, could not possibly understand all that he had been through these past four thousand years. No, he thought, rubbing a thumb slowly across the demon’s cheekbone. This was where he wanted to be. Here, with Crowley, who did know. Here, feeling his friend’s harsh lines and soft skin, feeling the demon’s hand rise to wrap gently around his wrist as he melted into the touch, leaning closer, needing more. 

They drifted into the embrace, stumbling into the negative space of one another. The angel slid his hand to the nape of Crowley’s neck and the demon dropped his head against the angel’s shoulder, and they wrapped their remaining arms around one another. They fit perfectly, chest to chest, belly to belly, hearts beating against hearts through skin and flesh and bone. Aziraphale’s face was pressed into the side of Crowley's neck and he was momentarily overwhelmed by the sensation of it all. 

This was all he’d wanted, he thought, dimly. This was all he’d wanted, in the beginning, when he’d asked for someone to share the world with. This was what it was to be known, and touched, and needed. 

The demon’s fingernails dug into his side and Aziraphale felt Crowley give a shaky breath and begin to sob - the tension he’d been carrying all evening suddenly giving way. Hot, wet tears were sliding down his cheeks, wetting the side of the angel’s temple. His hands were gripping onto Aziraphale rather desperately. And, as he felt his friend break, the angel found his own breaths growing unsteady, too.

They held one another for a long time, shifting only a little so that their hands could find more comfortable places to rest. As Crowley's sobs began to subside, the angel rested his face against his friend’s shoulder and pressed a soft kiss there - a little offering of comfort, against his tears. 

The demon did not react, at first. After a few moments, however, he gave a sniff and turned his face in, so that his nose brushed the soft skin of Aziraphale’s temple. Their difference in height meant that Crowley had to tilt his face down, to brush his mouth against the angel’s cheek - and that was the only reason Aziraphale knew that the movement was more than accidental. It was barely anything, otherwise, just a soft brush of skin. A tiny offering of comfort, in return.

Afterwards, his friend remained very close, still breathing roughly. And when the angel did not move away, he tilted his face in, again, and kissed his forehead this time. Then, after that, a place just over Aziraphale’s left eyebrow. Then, he was tilting his face down, and their noses were brushing. And Crowley hovered there, for a moment, just breathing. But only a moment, because then he was leaning in and their mouths were brushing. 

It was soft. So soft and so gentle. Barely anything at all. It could barely be called a kiss, really, because the touch of him was so light. But then Crowley was pressing closer, and his lips were more than brushing, and they were definitely kissing. And Aziraphale had never been kissed like that before - in more than parting or greeting - but somehow it felt completely natural. It felt natural, to tilt his head a little closer, to press back a little harder. It felt natural to let his hand slide up to the side of the demon’s neck. It felt natural, too, to let his mouth open so that he could taste the warm sweetness inside. And Crowley tasted wonderful. He tasted of wine and the cinnamon that had been used to spice it. His mouth was soft, and hot, and wet, but also solid and gently insistent. 

There was no particular intent about their movements. The kissing was almost entirely about comfort. Right up until the point where the angel let his tongue slip forwards to drag against the demon’s, and his friend gave a hungry little moan into his mouth. 

They pulled back as one. 

“Shit.” 

Crowley stared at him for a long moment and then stepped backwards, looking away. Lifting the hand that had been resting on Aziraphale’s arm, he touched the fingertips to his lips, disbelievingly, then hid the movement by using the back of his hand to swipe away the tears clinging to his cheeks. 

“Shit,” he hissed again, voice low and rough. “Sssorry… Didn’t mean that. Didn’t mean to…” His over-bright eyes danced between Aziraphale’s. “Jusst been a terrible day. Terrible few dayss, to be honessst.” He wiped at his cheeks again. The movement was pointless. As he looked back at Aziraphale and blinked, a few more tears leaked out over them. “Ssorry...”

The angel felt his heart squeeze in his chest. 

He watched Crowley, unsure what to do. Stories of angels who had fallen, for using their power out of selfish compassion rather than for Heaven’s purposes, trailed through his mind. They had loved humans - and surely touching a demon with compassion was far, far worse than loving a human. A demon should be a twisted thing, broken by its fall from grace, capable only of destruction. Only, this demon wasn’t, thought Aziraphale, staring into his counterpart’s tear-wet face. He was just brave, clever Crowley, who watched their world with such serious eyes - brilliant and kind, and warm under Aziraphale’s fingertips. And, as fearful as he was to fall, Aziraphale found he could not step away. 

It was just a kiss, he reasoned with himself. They'd only meant it as comfort. It was he who had pushed it too far, lost in the sensation of the moment. And Crowley’s little moan had only been a natural response. Their bodies were just mortal flesh, after all, with mortal desires running through them. Existentially, they might be celestial beings but physically - pressed up against one another - a man-shaped creature felt no different to a man. And that was what Crowley liked. Aziraphale knew that, from little comments over the years. That was what his friend sought out, for physical comfort.

Eyeing the demon, the angel doubted that Heaven would make much distinction between a kiss and a touch of their hands, anyway. He doubted they would see touching Crowley with compassion as anything more treacherous than the fact that they spoke regularly, or met up to drink together occasionally and share stories. All of it was equally damning. 

The thought both frightened and calmed him. 

“It’s okay,” he told Crowley, after a few moments had passed in silence. 

His friend looked surprised at his words, confused, but also relieved. Standing across from the angel, tear streaked in the moonlight, he looked utterly worn out and defeated. Yet there was a strange desperation about him, too. Ruffled and red lipped, he watched the angel with dark, longing eyes - heavy with some unnamed need. 

“Been a fucking terrible few weeks…” he whispered. 

“I can’t imagine.”

Crowley had travelled with the prophet. Known him personally. He had watched him grow and reach out to the world around him, watched him speak and care - and the demon had cared back, despite himself. He had felt the whole thing, very potently. Aziraphale could only sympathise. 

Gently, the angel lifted his hand up to the demon’s cheek again and rubbed away a fresh track of tears. He did not flinch as Crowley took the movement as permission, stepping back into the space he had created between them, tipping his head to rest again on his shoulder. 

“Been a fucking terrible few years,” Aziraphale felt him mutter, into the cloth of his robe. 

He stroked the back of the demon’s head, knowing fine well that what they were doing was inadvisable, but also knowing that they were far from where anyone would come looking for him. They were safe, to an extent, within the protective magic of Crowley’s home. And it was just a bit of comfort, after all. They were locked into these physical bodies, subject to their needs, struggling to cope with all of it alongside the weight of immortality and isolation. What was a bit of comfort, to make a bad day seem less dreadful? 

Turning his head slightly, the angel breathed in Crowley’s scent, rubbing slow circles on his back. He whispered that it would be okay. The words were as good as lies - how could he possibly know it would be okay, after all - but the demon seemed to welcome them. He gave a shaky sigh and pressed his forehead against the angel’s shoulder, holding on tighter. 

They stood that way for another ten minutes or so, until a cart rattling past on the road outside brought them back to reality. Then, the demon pulled gently away. 

His tears had dried to salt tracks. His expression was one of sheer exhaustion.

“Will you stay?” he asked, quietly.

Aziraphale knew that he should turn the offer down. He knew that he had already spent too long with Crowley and that Heaven was bound to be in the area soon - but not until the execution was over, he reminded himself, and that horrible business would take another twelve hours, at least. The demon’s dark chambers were as good a sanctuary as any, to spend the night. And he would not be alone, here. 

“I suppose I could,” Aziraphale said, flushing a little as Crowley lifted an eyebrow in response. “Just to make sure you’re okay..." The demon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I mean… I’d like to stay, dear boy. Thank you.” The last bit was truth and it rang that way. 

Crowley was clearly relieved enough to overlook the first half of the statement. Nodding, he stepped away and took Aziraphale by the hand - a little movement they had not shared in years - before leading him through the small room to the great carved bed at the far side. He dropped the angel’s hand before throwing himself down, on top of the blankets, fully clothed.

“Make yourself at home,” he grunted, into a pillow. 

Ever one for the humanity of things, the angel pulled off his outer robe, leaving himself in just a tunic, before he climbed into bed after the demon. As the two beings carefully positioned themselves across from one another, Aziraphale saw that Crowley was slightly hesitant to meet his gaze. 

Wondering if he was regretting the offer of company, the angel made sure to leave plenty of space between them, lying down right at the edge of the mattress. But, after a while, the demon sat up to pull off his outer robe too and used the movement to slip closer. Inching into Aziraphale’s half of the bed, he lay back down facing the angel, one arm resting between them, just a hair's breadth away from contact. The back of it radiated gentle heat against the angel’s chest. 

Crowley's eyes rested there. 

“I missed you,” he whispered, after a while - more to the night than to the angel. 

“I never went anywhere,” Aziraphale replied, then felt a little cruel for doing so. He knew what Crowley meant. Not distance, but _distance_. They’d been avoiding one another since their argument. It all seemed so foolish, now. “I missed you, too,” the angel rephrased, pushing his cheek against the bed’s worn linen sheets. He was very glad not to be lying on the frozen ground, tonight. He was even more glad not to be alone. 

Crowley looked up at him, his expression strangely pained. He looked as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. 

“Aziraphale?” he asked, after a few moments had passed in silence. “Do you… Do you think we could…” he trailed off, tightening his jaw and looking away. 

Aziraphale shifted his cheek against cotton. 

“Think we could what?” 

The demon’s eyes flickered back over to him. His pupils were blown wide open, the angel thought. Huge black oblongs, in the darkness of the room. Night must seem perfectly bright to him, the angel thought. His body was made for darkness.

Somehow, it was not a sobering thought, but one that made Aziraphale feel safe. He felt very secure with Crowley there, watching over him. He felt so secure that - despite rarely indulging in sleep, as a luxury - he found himself drifting off towards it. 

“Think we could what, dear?” He yawned, moving a sleepy hand out to slip a pinkie finger around the demon’s, pressing him for an answer. When Crowley still did not speak, he squeezed gently. “Crowley?”

Crowley gave a long sigh. 

“It’s nothing,” he breathed, into the space between them. “Nothing important. Nothing that won't keep until morning anyway…”

“Oh. All right, then.” 

Aziraphale could not read Crowley’s expression as his eyelids begin to close, which was probably for the best. His dreams would have been very different had he understood what hid behind those hungry eyes. 

.

When Aziraphale woke the following morning, the demon was gone and he was wrapped in bedsheets. There was no note, which he found strangely sad. A few of Crowley’s belongings were still strewn around the rooms, so it was unlikely that he had left for good, but it wouldn’t do to wait around, the angel thought. They both had work to attend to and Aziraphale had been absent from heaven’s radar far too long, already. 

Crowley would probably appreciate having him out of his hair, besides. Last night had been lovely, but the demon had been very drunk and he was not terribly good at admitting he had feelings at the best of times. He was probably going to be a bit funny about Aziraphale having seen him cry. Best to leave him to it, really, the angel thought. Pretend not to remember. 

Forcing himself up from the wonderfully comfortable nest they had made of their sheets, Aziraphale wrapped himself once more in his borrowed cloak, and headed out into the humanity of the world. He would check in on the demon in a couple weeks, he told himself, just to make sure Crowley was okay. He was sure the demon wouldn’t mind him stopping by. He’d make up some excuse about having to return Crowley’s cloak, the angel decided, stepping out into the brisk morning sunshine. Yes. That would do. 

He set off down the street towards the city wall, and more sobering thoughts. 

.


	5. 1040 CE, Ghazni

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nickname is coined. A bit of flirting is done. A lunch date is agreed upon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year all! Apologies for missing Monday posting this week - I have genuinely lost track of the days. To make up for it, there's a new oneshot posting later today in addition to this chapter. (Mind the rating). 
> 
> CW for this chapter: mention of Aziraphale having sex with humans, oblique mention of Crowley having sex with humans,

**1040CE, Ghazni**

.

The next thousand years saw the world blossom anew. For the first time, Aziraphale’s duties took him away from the area around the Mediterranean. 

He travelled to the freezing northern wastes of Europe and experienced proper snow. He met the peoples who lived in lands which went months without sun, whose jade green cliffs formed jagged teeth along the coast of a freezing sea. He travelled on, by boat, to a small island that he would one day make his home and travelled the length of it on foot, meeting peoples of various descriptions along the way. 

After two centuries living on that small damp island, he sailed south again, down along the great curve of Africa and up again. In warmer seas, he met new peoples and saw wonders that he could only dream of. The empires of the far east outstripped even those of the far north in beauty. Their poetry and songs were beyond compare. The angel spent a happy hundred years collating them in his memory and then travelled on, by foot this time, through a great desert and into the mountains. 

He walked along paths that formed the roof of the world, following the footsteps of the local guides, until they came upon secret monasteries clinging to the side of the mountains, halfway up to heaven. He stayed in one or two. And he visited the small villages, below. And, as time passed, he moved on into the wild lands at the heart of the world. Then on, westward, until he came back to the place that he had first been sent to protect. The cradle of countries around the eastern foot of the Mediterranean. 

The garden was no longer - it had been no longer, Aziraphale suspected, since the very moment he had locked its doors - but shadows of the tribes that had lived in the area were still there. The cities had changed names, allegiances, and kings. All of the metals and textiles were new. But the people were much as people had always been. 

Aziraphale documented it all diligently. He made friends with the human scholars of the time in order to learn from them. At the turn of the new millennium, he travelled to Ghazni to learn from a gentleman who was writing books about mathematics and astronomy. It was there, after a long two hundred years apart, that he encountered the demon again. 

Crawly - _Crowley_ , Aziraphale still sometimes had to remind himself - had come to see the scholar, too. He had come to learn more about one of the man's texts, he explained, when their paths crossed in the city’s reading rooms. The scholar, Biruni, had posited the existence of a great landmass across the seas, to the west, and Crowley was keen to learn more about the mathematics behind it. He was curious, too, about the scholar’s ingenious method of estimating the radius of the Earth, using the height of a mountain.

It was all rather clever, the demon conceded, lounging against the wall beside Aziraphale's desk and thumbing absently at the short beard he wore, to fit in alongside the local men. Fifty centuries in and humans still managed to surprise him. 

Wrapping his cloak tighter Aziraphale had agreed that it was impressive that they could still come up with new things. Then, he had agreed with Crowley that it was high time someone invented something to heat houses more effectively than a fireplace. It was perilously cold, in the region. Just past midwinter, the shortest days of the year were dragging on, gracing them with huge swathes of snow from the nearby mountains and biting wind from across the plains. By modern measurement, it would have been around ten below zero, though they had no way of measuring heat like that, in those days. Aziraphale tended to measure temperature by how quickly his ink froze in his quill. Today, he had been forced to move his desk closer to the hearth, just to keep the ink flowing. It was desperately cold. 

Despite the icy winds, however, Aziraphale found himself agreeing to accompany Crowley up to the flat rooftop of the old library, to point out the sights of the city. The demon was wrapped in layers of black cotton and furs. With the collar of his robe pulled up around his neck and his dark beard covering most of his cheeks, there was very little skin on show as they made their way across the windswept roof. His thick leather boots crunched on the snow as he walked in front of Aziraphale but, as always, he left very little print behind him. Crowley had always been light footed, the angel mused, as he wandered out from the stairwell after him. He had always moved in a manner not quite human. 

As if his mind was playing a series of moving images, the angel remembered how the demon had danced through the streets of Damascus, and leapt lightly from the back of a chariot - scaled a tree in the forbidden gardens of some King’s palace, and padded ahead of him down the hallways of the great library of Alexandria. 

They had crossed paths with increasing regularity these last thousand years, Aziraphale thought. He probably had just as many memories of Crowley as of Crawly, now. The last hundred years were something of an aberration. (Which he later found out was due to an extended nap on Crowley's part). Before that, it had been rare for to go more than a few decades without bumping into the demon, finding him full of stories, and sarcasm, and often in the mood for wine and a catch up. Crowley had continued to allow Aziraphale space in his life - though there had been a rough patch, after that night in Jerusalem. 

The demon had seemed strangely annoyed with him when they had first bumped into one another next, in Rome. At first, the angel had not been sure why. He could not reasonably see why it had irritated the demon, that he had spent the night. Crowley had been the one to suggest he stay, after all, and been the one to lie so close. And if he had been a bit upset at the time, well, Aziraphale had tactfully never mentioned it again. 

He had not mentioned the kissing part either, or the fact that he had held Crowley, and stroked his head, and told him everything was going to be okay. While the angel did not think there was anything wrong with such behaviour, he knew that the demon would - so he had pointedly not talked about it, afterwards. He felt he had been rather conscientious, actually, about the whole thing. He did not know why Crowley had acted so irritably. It wasn't as if he could have expected to come home, from wherever he had slipped off to that morning, and find Aziraphale still tangled up in his sheets. 

The realisation that that might have been _exactly_ what the demon had been expecting only came to Aziraphale many years later, in Londinium. 

.

It had been some time after the angel’s stay on the small, damp island - just before the fall of the small, damp Kingdom of Wessex. Aziraphale had been back in the country for the purposes of tracking a merchant ship, whose cargo Heaven had marked as ‘rather important’ and definitely not to be lost at sea. Crowley had been sent to track the ship for opposing purpose. 

Between them, the angel and the demon had decided that the only way of solving the matter of whether the ship should sink - without resorting to changing the weather, quite a bit of death, and rather a lot of paperwork - was to have the crew mutiny before they even left port. So, they had been sitting on the docks, waiting for provisions to be brought aboard so they could spark a row about the amount of rum that was being allotted to each sailor. 

Having established that the porters would not be finished for another hour, the demon had offered to go and fetch them breakfast from a pub down the road. The angel had agreed, offering to stay and finish doctoring the manifest, as per their relatively new Arrangement. 

As Crowley hopped lightly onto land, he’d thrown a little frown back.

“Just don’t bugger off before I get back, alright?” He had called, giving Aziraphale a strange look - half reproachful, half shy. “It’s bad form to vanish on someone while they’re fetching you breakfast.” Then, he had wandered off into the throng, coming back twenty minutes later with bread and cheese clutched under one arm. 

Aziraphale had spent the whole twenty minutes staring after him, wondering what his words had meant - wondering if he was being entirely too sensitive, or whether he had been not nearly sensitive enough. 

The idea that he had hurt Crowley by leaving that morning made him feel terribly guilty - though he wasn't sure why the demon had assumed he would do otherwise. They had both had places to go, after all, and masters to serve. That night had been precious comfort and really quite sweet, but it hadn’t changed their circumstances. They were still not allowed friendship beyond the loose terms they currently enjoyed. (Technically, they were not even allowed that). 

They had never really talked about that night, afterwards. Aziraphale had assumed Crowley didn't want to discuss it and the demon had never corrected that assumption. They did not talk about it when they met in Rome - though they did go and eat oysters together. They did not discuss it in Londinium, either - though the angel had intended to, when the demon got back from fetching food. Their little mutiny had kicked off earlier than anticipated and they had got caught up in events.

After that, there just hadn’t seemed a right time to bring it up. Aziraphale had stopped talking about Jerusalem altogether. There were too many memories associated with the city. 

On the rooftop, in Ghazni, however, he was about to do something that might stimulate conversation about the past. There was something he had picked up in the town square, that morning, which would provoke a few memories. For the first time in a long time, Aziraphale thought he might be feeling brave enough to bring up their ancient history. He had grown more confident in himself, these last few hundred years.

.

Moving over towards a large iron dish at the centre of the roof, the angel waved a hand. A roaring fire appeared in the grate, logs burning as if they had been set hours ago. Heat poured out from the centre of it, a welcome relief against the wind.

Sitting down on a small stool which had appeared beside the fire, the angel held out his hands towards it, and beckoned Crowley over. 

After shooting Aziraphale a look usually reserved for the angel's more frivolous culinary indulgences, the demon obliged. Summoning a few pillows from thin air, he flopped down and held his hands out to the fire.

“Thought you were going to show me the view,” he grumbled. “Otherwise I would have stayed inside and frozen my balls off there, instead. At least the wind was quieter.” 

The wind on the rooftop was a bit loud, Aziraphale thought, but it was also beautiful. The air was throwing ice crystals around them in flurries, making the afternoon shimmer. Flung close to the fire, the crystals melted instantly, creating a patch of clarity around the flames that felt like a bubble - like a portal to a different world. It was a nice place to be closeted together, thought the angel, looking over at his old friend.

"Did you want to see the sights?" 

Crowley grumbled an affirmative. 

"Well, alright then." 

Holding out a hand, Aziraphale directed Crowley’s attention to notable points around the city, in turn. He showed him where the local magistrates lived, and the town hall, and the different residential districts - noting where the best wine and food could be had along the way. He noted, also, where the town’s more nefarious activities took place, (ostensibly so that Crowley could avoid them, but also because he wanted to be helpful and he was not entirely sure about what the demon partook of for recreation these days). He pointed out where the markets were and told the demon which days of the week were best to buy meat and grain. Then, he talked a little about the town's architecture, pointing to each of the great churches along the horizon.

Their gilt tips gleamed at the end of his fingertips, in the sunlight. 

“That is where I am lodged,” he told Crowley, finishing his tour by pointing out a lesser church on the north side of the city. “The young leader has granted me rooms in the back of the building where they keep the books. He was happy to have a translator in exchange for room and board.” 

“Convenient.” 

“Yes, I find it so.” 

They watched one another for a long moment, then Crowley gave a little sigh, his breath clouding the air. 

“Well, the place seems decent enough. I might hang around for a few weeks.”

“You should pop by for dinner, if you do,” Aziraphale offered, feeling his spirits brighten. What a treat - no Crowley for two hundred years and then three weeks of proximity. His mind raced away with itself in excitement. “We could discuss that text in a bit more length and I could show you my work. I've been studying illuminations.” 

Crowley’s eyes slipped over and fixed on him. He was wearing a strange expression. 

“To your rooms?” He asked, voice clipped. 

“Yes,” the angel frowned. “What of it?”

“In a mosque?”

“Yes.”

“Do you not find that potentially problematic?”

“Not really. Society would generally assume these shapes to be those of human men, so nobody would-,” the angel cut himself off as the demon's meaning hit home. “ _Oh.._.” His cheeks flushed, despite the cold of the air. “Of course.” He shook his head, chiding himself. “I am dreadfully sorry, Crowley. I didn't think.” 

Demon, he reminded himself. Crowley was a _demon_. Traipsing around a holy place would hurt him, at the very least. Lesser sites would only burn his body, but the holiest could destroy him entirely. How could he possibly have been so thoughtless?

His friend held his gaze for another moment, then dropped it, staring at the fire. 

“It's fine. Forget it.”

“No, it's not. It was quite inconsiderate of me,” Aziraphale shook his head. “I’m very sorry, dear boy.”

“It’s of no consequence,” the demon sighed. The strange expression was gone when he looked back up. His voice was no longer clipped. He just looked a little tired. “Honestly, don’t worry about it, angel.” 

It was strange, the way he'd started using the title, Aziraphale though. In the beginning, it had definitely been a title. It had been no more than a reference to what Aziraphale was, in the moments that Crowley wanted to point out the differences between them. Now, there were times when it seemed much closer to an endearment. Aziraphale knew he shouldn’t think of it like that - he was likely making far more of it than Crowley intended - but the way the demon’s mouth moved over the word sometimes felt a little too careful, a little too warm. 

Angel. Did he mean 'my angel’, perhaps? It felt just a little like ownership, did that warmth in Crowley’s voice. It felt proprietary.

The thought reminded him. 

Reaching into his outer pocket, Aziraphale retrieved the item he had picked up from the town square that morning - the item that reminded him of Crowley. It was a small, neatly folded paper bag, containing a number of small objects. Holding it out, he indicated that Crowley should take it and so the demon did.

With a slight frown, Aziraphale's friend turned the package between his hands, unfolding a corner until he could see inside. Then, a grin slipped across his features.

"I didn't know they made these,” he looked up, straightening his expression, (though Aziraphale could see a smile lingering in his eyes). 

“They're not common in these parts,” the angel admitted. “Usually, they use almonds, but the vendor I was talking to was born further west. His family used to make these for celebrations.” 

“Huh.” 

The demon dipped his fingers into the bag and withdrew one of the candied nuts. Then, he surprised Aziraphale by popping it into his mouth. The angel grinned, delighted. He had never seen Crowley eat the treats, before. In the past, the demon had always purchased them for him - their little joke, a nod to a memory two thousand years in the past. 

“Mm. They've changed the coating,” the demon grumbled, frowning. 

The angel laughed, the noise bursting from him with a familiar but almost-forgotten ease. It had been so long since he had laughed like that, laughed with Crowley. Proper, honest, full-body laughter. 

“It's been eons, you fool,” he exclaimed, between chuckles. “Of course they've changed the coating! What did you expect?”

The demon looked up at him. He wore a trace of an indignant frown, at first, but the expression vanished almost immediately. Then, they were both laughing, voices loud in the cold winter air. Laughing and, in Crowley’s case, choking a little on half-chewed nuts. 

“Surely not!” He managed, between coughs. “Is nothing sacred, in this wretched world?” Finally managing to clear his throat, he swallowed a couple of times, then reached into the bag and popped another candied nut in his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, he added, “you know, they’re not bad. I think it’s cane sugar, rather than honey, but I like the spices.”

“Yes,” the angel smiled. “I rather enjoyed them.” 

They watched one another a moment, then both turned to watch the fire. 

"They've been my favourite ever since you bought me them, in Tyre,” Aziraphale offered, after a minute or so had passed, Crowley gently nibbling away. “I had no idea you liked them, too.”

The demon grunted.

“Well, I don’t go in for eating, on the whole, but there are a few things I’ll go out of my way for. I suppose I buy these because they remind me of you.” He added the last bit so lightly that Aziraphale almost did not register it. Blinking, he looked down. Crowley popped one last nut into his mouth, then rolled the top down on the paper bag and tossed it back across. The angel caught it, instinctively. They watched one another. “Positive associations, and all that.” 

There was the tiniest hint of challenge in his eyes. 

_Go on. Call me on it. Tell me I’m being nice._

Aziraphale knew what Crowley would do if he made a fuss over the moment. He would hiss, and complain, and make grand statements about how demons were never nice - and that Aziraphale was reading into him what he wanted to see - and the conversation would roll back several stages, into awkwardness, and they would never recover the soft camaraderie they were soaking in, now. 

So, the angel did not respond. He just smiled and stowed the candied nuts back in his pocket, then folded his hands over the fire again. He let the moment slide, just as he always did when the demon did something kind. If Crowley wanted plausible deniability then he could have it. Just so long as they got to share little moments like this. 

After a time, the angel re-started their conversation about Biruni and they talked about the scholar’s work for a while. Crowley commented on his recent text and Aziraphale told him some of the stories behind the work - about the people they had met as they had travelled across the vast princedoms of the land south of the Himalaya. He told the demon about the colours and the sounds and the smells, and the vibrant songs and dances. 

Crowley’s eyes rested on him as he spoke, traveling well-worn paths across his face. His tinted glasses had been pocketed, for the time being - for which Aziraphale was very glad. Though the glasses had been a feature for nearly nine hundred years, now, he was still not used to being denied the sight of his friend’s eyes. It had been rather a hard thing to let go of. Indeed, for the first few meetings Crowley'd worn them, the angel had complained all the way through. It was only when he'd realised how much more comfortable Crowley was, wearing the glasses, that he'd stopped whining. 

They made for less attention, the demon had admitted, one night when they were deep in their cups. Fewer questions about what was 'wrong with him’ - if he was diseased, or cursed, or his parents had been siblings. It gave him leave to concentrate his powers on other things than fending off people’s interest.

All were fair reasons, the angel thought. Still, he missed being able to see his friend’s irises grow wide and gold in the late hours of the evening, when he had stopped pretending to be human. He missed the way Crowley's long pupils had narrowed to a single swipe of black and widened to great dilated ovals. There was just such a strong association between those eyes and so much of Aziraphale’s history. The angel had long divided up the passage of time by his meetings with Crowley. The demon was his anchor against the steady pull of eternity. The world might have changed but those eyes remained the same. 

How Crowley watched him with them had changed, however. 

In the garden, the demon's gaze had held only curiosity. As they’d emerged into the world and realised the enormity of the division between them, there had been caution. For many years, that was all there was - because everything had been so new and they had both been trying so hard to figure out where they fit into it all. But time and loneliness had softened the fear and the demon had begun to watch him with interest, instead. Then, as they had become friends, Crowley had begun to watch him in numerous ways; in amusement, and irritation, and indignation, and contentment. 

Crowley had also watched Aziraphale with a few expressions the angel had not been able to read, at the time - expressions which made a lot more sense in retrospect. 

Rather prosaically, it came down to sex. The demon had sex. It was an established part of who he was. It had been one of the first things Aziraphale had learned about him, when their paths crossed in the world outside the garden. Crowley fucked. And sometimes he made little jokes about fucking. And sometimes he understood what was going on in a human situation a little better than Aziraphale because he understood the dynamic behind it. And, often, he picked up on references in songs and stories that the angel missed, because Aziraphale did not have sex. Or, rather, he had chosen not to have sex for a very long time.

It was not as if the angel had anything against the act, on the whole. Sex was a part of the human experience and, in reproductive terms, an essential part of life on Earth. Sent down in a physical body, which had needs and genitalia (an interesting, dimorphic concept to get used to, angels being sexless themselves) Aziraphale had always known physical intimacy was something he’d like to try out, some day. His human shaped body felt desire, after all. He liked touch a great deal - so it felt natural that he should want to connect with others in a physical way. 

It was just that he had been wanting to ‘connect' with someone who was more on an equal footing. Someone like him. A companion. It had never seemed right, in the beginning, to share such a moment with a human. The idea of them not knowing who or what he really was had felt rather disingenuous. 

As the possibility of him ever receiving a partner from Heaven grew less and less likely, however, and Aziraphale spent more time on Earth, his opinions shifted. He might be destined to be alone until the end, he reasoned, but he would live many small lives between now and then. The nature of his role meant he was forced to reinvent himself repeatedly. Thinking about it that way - as a series of small lives - it felt far less disingenuous to share a moment with a human who he cared about and who knew who he was, in that time and place. 

Sex had been something he definitely wanted to experience, after all. It had been still a bit of a mystery, despite his having read about it in stories and songs. There had to be something about sharing touch, with a partner, that made it more meaningful - because stroking himself to climax with his hand was nice, (very nice actually), but it was hardly worth all the lamenting, and pining, and carrying on that humans did about sex. There had to be more to it. So, he had opened himself up to the idea and, just a few years later, things had fallen into place. 

His first experience was more out of circumstance than planning. He had met a woman while travelling with a nomadic family in Mongolia. She had been clever, and stubborn, and headstrong, and made him laugh. She was one of the few humans who liked to talk in abstract principles about the world and Aziraphale had appreciated that. The widowed sister of a tribal leader, she had held enough power to conduct her life as she saw fit. Her two children had stopped needing her, by her fourth decade, so she’d had plenty of time to spare for Aziraphale - and plenty of interest. 

He’d read it as friendly interest right up until the night that she had sought him out in his tent to talk, and, some way through the conversation, asked him playfully why he had never taken a wife or a lover. When he had said he’d never had anyone who he had felt was a match to him, she had smiled, and said she sympathised. She had never felt as if her partner was a match, either. Perhaps on account of him being a man. Not that she was uninterested in men as an occasional distraction - especially during the long cold of winter. 

“I could touch you like a lover now, if you wanted?” She had offered, dark eyes alive and full of anticipation in the half darkness of the tent. “I know you will never share all of your heart with me,” she added, “but I suppose that is part of why I like you. All your stories of the world. All your words. There is a lure in imagining the best and worst of someone - and all they have seen and done. A thrill of the illicit.”

She had given a little grin then, delighted by her own words, and the movement had reminded Aziraphale so potently of Crowley that he had felt himself trusting her. He had nodded and let her touch him. Then he'd come back, the next night, and learned how to touch her back. He had spent four short months with her extended family, in their overwintering camp, warming her bed until the spring thawed the snows. Then, he headed west and the nomads headed east.

Astride her mount, at the edge of the broken camp, Aziraphale's first lover had bidden him goodbye with a gentle kiss on the cheek. She had thanked him earnestly for his company. Then, she had kicked her horse around and ridden off without looking back. 

It had been a long, sullen walk west, towards his next posting. Wrapped in a thick cloak to keep out the chill and the loneliness, Aziraphale had mused that perhaps all the lamenting and pining and carrying on wasn’t that much of a dreadful overreaction after all. Sex was a funny thing.

He had shared his body with a few others in the years since, though none for an extended length of time. There had been a harp player, who he’d met through a mutual acquaintance - and a poet, who had read shyly from her own scribblings while she lay sprawled across him. Then, there had been a senator, in Constantinople, who had given him his first taste of what sex could be like between two men. After learning his trade, the angel had tried it out with another few willing participants.

Aziraphale found he had vague preferences for individual acts, but was fairly open to who he shared those acts with. Testing the limits of his body and his soul, he figured out how much intimacy he was comfortable with sharing. Then, he made himself some rules and stuck to them. Over all, sex could be said to have been a resounding success. 

No matter how good it felt at the time, however, the angel never managed to get rid of that lonely feeling that drifted in, afterwards. No matter how intense the physical experience had been, he always felt a little left behind, once the adrenaline and heartbeats had returned to normal. There was something incredibly sad about knowing that, in just a handful of years, his lovers' bodies would age and fail. There was something even sadder in knowing that they offered themselves to him without knowing who or what he was. Sometimes all he wanted, more than anything physical, was just to be known. 

But there was no option for him to have all the things he wanted in one person. So, the angel had learned to compartmentalise his life instead. Sex was for the physical - for touch and comfort. To feel connection, he had a few loose friendships with the other principalities on Earth, a couple of the angels stationed above. And Crowley, of course. 

He and Crowley spent most of their lives circling one another these days, the angel thought, watching the demon across the fire. The last two centuries aside, they'd seen one another every other decade, as their assigned human populations overlapped more and more. The Arrangement meant that they made an effort to meet intentionally sometimes, too, to share information. 

And then there was always that strange degree of coincidence which had always seemed to dog them; coincidence which led them to bump into one another in cities that should have been too large for such a thing to happen, or to join the same caravan from different points along a trail, or to receive separate invites to the same event. It must be an artefact of living parallel lives, the angel reasoned, watching the demon summon a few more logs to add to his fire. 

As the embers caught the new wood and curled into the cracks of it, spitting to find moisture there, Crowley looked back up and their eyes held. 

In absence of speech, Aziraphale could not help but take a few moments to admire the way the fire lit the side of his friend’s face, sending dark shadows along his cheeks and under his brow. Crowley’s red hair was cropped close along his skull, in the current fashion of a mercenary soldier, but there was plenty red along his jaw. He suited the beard, Aziraphale thought, nearly as much as he did a clean shave. It took his appearance right to the masculine end of the physical spectrum, but it was still, somehow, not wrong. Just like how his most feminine forms had not been wrong. They were all just Crowley. For the umpteenth time, the angel marvelled at how easily his friend incorporated soul with body. He really was very beautiful. 

(Crowley was not the only one who watched with want, as it turned out. Earth could be a lonely place). 

“Where does life take you, after this?” Aziraphale asked the demon, clearing his throat and turning his attention back into the fire. 

In the periphery of his vision, he felt Crowley’s eyes continue to rest on him, expression a little curious. 

“Northwest,” he replied, slowly. “Once the mountain passes are clear, I have business in Rhages.”

“The city beneath the inland sea?”

“The very same. They've got a new empire on the go,” the demon shrugged. “Thought I’d go and poke around a bit, see what I can get up to.”

“No good, I imagine,” Aziraphale mused. 

Crowley inclined his head slowly, as if making a point. 

_Demon_ , the angel reminded himself. His friend was a demon. And they weren’t even friends, really, he reminded himself. Friendship was just a human construct which looked somewhat similar to what they had. In reality, he and Crowley were… well, they were something else. Something more.

They were everything, really, Aziraphale thought. They were everything to one another. Adversaries, counterparts, an anchor against the pull of time - most ardent critics but also most treasured consolation - they were all the things that friendship might entail, but also more. Because what they were to one another carried consequence, Aziraphale reminded himself. Because they were not two humans, but an angel and a demon, and they did not get to choose friends or sides. 

They were what they were made to be by a higher power, he reminded himself, pulling the fur of his cloak a little tighter - despite the fact that he wasn’t cold, despite the fact that he was feeling rather warm, actually. It was a strange sort of warmth. Something that came from the inside, rather than the fire. 

_Demon_ , he whispered to himself again, as reminder. _Demon. Demon. Demon._

Crowley’s bright eyes continued to watch him. 

“And after Rhages?” Aziraphale asked, lightly. 

“Francia.” The demon tilted his head. “By way of Rome. Though I expect I’ll have bumped into you, before then. We usually do, nowadays.”

They usually did. It was true. Whether by coincidence or subliminal choice, Aziraphale was not sure. (A little voice in the back of his head whispered ‘providence’, but he pushed it away as quickly as he always did when the thought occurred. God did not do Her Work through demons. That was one of the most fundamental rules Heaven had laid out to him, in the beginning. Whatever guided Crowley through the world - if indeed anything did, beyond his own wants and desires - it was not the divine. It couldn’t be). 

“What of your movements?” Crowley enquired, scratching at his cheek. The beard was clearly a new thing. He kept fiddling with it, pulling at it. Aziraphale’s own had taken a few weeks to get used to. 

“Back through Constantinople, for a while,” he answered. “Then Rome.”

“Will be interesting, going back to Rome,” Crowley commented, in that light way he had when he wanted to imply something meaningful. “I haven't been through in years. Wonder if they’ve made any advances in the world of oysters…”

“Well, if the advances in candied nuts are anything to go by…” Aziraphale trailed off. 

They did this strange thing, now. Little half-open invitations, little suggestions, little flirtatious implications that the angel had begun to toss back whenever Crowley offered them out. It was a new patter, but one Aziraphale enjoyed. 

“Should probably check it out, you know. Good to stay abreast of these things.”

“Probably should,” the angel agreed.

Crowley’s bright eyes darted between the angel’s, as if to double-check his mood. 

“Not much fun on your own, oysters,” he commented.

“Do you not think?”

“No.” The demon gave a slow grin. “We could do some reconnaissance while we’re both in Rome, if you wanted? Lunch - my treat.” 

The bluntness of the offer startled Aziraphale, who turned his face quickly back to the fire and tucked his arms into the folds of his cloak. 

“Lunch, you say?” He made his voice light, as if he were only vaguely interested. “Oh, I don’t know, Crowley. I don’t suppose you’d even know when you were going to be in town. Nor I, really… We’re likely to miss one another.”

“Well, I reckon i’ll be about five years, in Rhages,” his friend replied, “and your business in Constantinople can’t take more than that. So, we won’t be far off. You could just drop me a letter when you arrive. Our post usually makes its way to the right place.”

“Yes. It does, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale mused, trying not to let his face show how keen he was to accept, to have another meeting to look forward to - sad, lonely little angel that he was. 

“Ingenious things, humans, thinking up postal services. Clever, clever, clever.” 

“Mm.” Aziraphale frowned. 

They had agreed that they would always send one another’s letters to the nearest town hall to avoid connecting themselves with wherever they were staying. But, while the angel’s letters were couriered expensively by hand - lightly blessed so that they would be laid to the side, untouched, until Crowley dropped by to pick them up - the demon’s tended just to manifest at the top of the mail pile and compel themselves to be collected.

It was pushy, egotistical magic. Very Crowley. Aziraphale had had to deal with a number of clerks, over the years, commenting on how odd it was that he always seemed to know when his post had come in. 

“There might be more to it than a well-thought out delivery service, in our case,” the angel told his friend, diplomatically. 

“No, no,” the demon shook his head. “I’m convinced it’s all them. You shouldn’t sell them short, angel. Great minds, humans. Very innovative.”

“Mmhm.”

Aziraphale glanced back over at Crowley, wondering if he should really be endorsing this sort of behaviour. Bantering gently. Joking about the way they kept up a regular correspondence. Agreeing to meet, without so much as a nod towards The Arrangement, or work - not that that should be a reason for meeting anyway, the angel reminded himself. He and Crowley weren’t supposed to meet at all. They weren't supposed to talk. They were supposed to attempt to smite one another on sight… but Heaven had not checked in on Aziraphale for a very, very long time and he was hardly going to start denying himself the company of the one person in the world who knew him. He’d go mad in this place, otherwise. 

It wasn’t as if they ever stepped over the line, Aziraphale reassured himself. They might occasionally conduct a minor miracle or temptation on one another’s behalf but never anything too weighty. It was just a casual lunch, he lied to himself, gently. It was just a loose arrangement between two friendly enemies. Completely natural. 

Turning back to Crowley properly, Aziraphale told the demon that he would come to Rome and would try to arrive in the spring, so they could enjoy the air before it grew too hot and stagnant. In turn, Crowley told the angel that he would keep an eye out for any upswings of godliness in the area - then made a little joke about oysters, which broke any tension Aziraphale was feeling about accepting the offer. 

Slowly the mood around the fire drifted into happy contentment, as the two definitely-not-friends wrapped themselves tightly against the cold and stoked the flames a little - neither willing to look directly at the other and admit that they were very happy to have a few weeks of one another’s intermittent company to look forwards to, and then another meeting, in just a decade’s time. It would make the next ten years so much more bearable, Aziraphale thought, knowing the demon stood at the end of them, full of stories and frivolity.

Beside him, Crowley knelt up slightly, pulling his cloak a bit tighter. Grabbing the cushions he had been sitting on, he looked up at Aziraphale on his low stool. 

“Mind if I sit closer?” He asked, against the gentle crackling of the fire. “It’s colder than Hell up here.”

“Not at all.” He was always going to say ‘not at all’, regardless of the look in Crowley’s eyes as he had asked. Aziraphale had become all too adept at allowing himself comfort. 

“Much obliged…” 

As the angel tossed a few more logs onto the flames, the demon threw the two cushions down at his feet, and shuffled over to lounge on top of them, wrapping his cloak tightly and pressing his side against Aziraphale’s leg. Their shared warmth was a wonderful buffer against the ice in the air, and the angel did not move. He did not move when Crowley yawned and he found himself staring just a little too long at the pink tip of the demon’s tongue. Nor when Crowley turned to look up at him, halfway through their conversation, and rested his arm on his knee. He did not even move when he saw his friend’s pupils dilate towards the graceful black orbs they had been on that night, in Jerusalem. 

Aziraphale did not move because he was all too adept at allowing himself comfort, now - and even more adept at lying to himself. So, he let the demon lean and touch. Despite knowing more about the world than he had, that one and only time they had kissed. Despite knowing that the look in his friend’s eyes was want, now. Despite feeling it pull a little, in return. 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was a bit of a slow one but things start to ramp up from next chapter. We're definitely going to have a rating bump, so watch the tags and make sure you're all cool with them.


	6. 1511 CE, Rome I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel is invited to a party, a demon makes a proposal, an argument ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This 'chapter' turned into a large one, so i've split it into parts and will be posting them all this week. Hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for your kudos and comments. I appreciate every single word. :)

**1511 CE, Rome**

**Part I**

**.**

Rome became a rendezvous point of sorts, over the next five hundred years. They met there several times - occasionally with oblique professional intentions, but mostly just to socialise. The invite was always, ostensibly, for lunch. They kept good track of advances in oysters, over that half century. And of the local vineyards. And of a number of frivolities which had no importance to either Heaven or Hell, but that they thought they should test out just the same. 

By the sixteenth century, Aziraphale was spending most of his time back on the small island where he had been forced to tramp around, in armour, a thousand years previous. He was staying in London and was pleased to say that the city had improved drastically since the withdrawal of the Roman empire, the unification of the native kingdoms, and the establishment of a stable governing system. It was still big, and smelly, and dirty, but there was ample opportunity around for exploring cultural pursuits. There were musicians and artists, all supported by the noble families and the crown. There were fine establishments for dining, and great churches of magnificent beauty. 

The young King of the country considered himself a patron of the arts, and was forever sending delegations back and forth to other countries, to gather new artisans to his court. Aziraphale, who had insinuated himself into court life alongside other advisors of mixed repute, often managed to get sent along on such voyages. Such was the one he was on, now - a trip to Rome, to entreat something from the Pope. 

Aziraphale had very little invested in the trip. He thought he might turn a miracle or two on the local population, but it was mostly to keep track of the young nobleman who had been sent along with the delegation. He had been keeping tight watch over the young man, over the last two years, with hopes that he would grow to be a great leader one day. Things were going well, apart from the slight predilection young Francis Bryan had for gambling and consorting, but he was a young man - the angel reasoned - hopefully he’d mellow with time. 

When Aziraphale found out he would be travelling to Italy, he had dropped a letter to Crowley to say he’d be in the area, but had not received a response. He was surprised, therefore, to step off the coach and find the demon lurking near the back of the welcoming party. 

Excusing himself from the side of his young noble charge, the angel slipped away into the crowd - miraculously unnoticed by the other members of the court - and sidled up to the demon as he stood at the back of a crowd of humans, all gathered to admire the English courtiers. 

“Well. Fancy bumping into you here,” he had glowed. It had been nearly twelve years since he had seen Crowley - not long at all by historical standards, but long enough these days. They had been seeing one another almost every decade, since the turn of the millennium. 

“Well, I was in the area,” Crowley sighed, making a show of sounding put upon. “Wasn’t busy, so I thought I’d stop by.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you.” 

They had watched one another for a long moment, then, before remembering where and when they were and each giving a little bow - Aziraphale’s was complete with hand movement to the side, Crowley’s more of an irritated jerk of the neck. Gone were the days of greeting one another with a kiss or an embrace, the angel thought, as he straightened up. Earth’s customs had changed. More was the pity. Bowing was an awful faff. 

“Can I interest you in a spot of lunch?” The demon asked, eyebrows sliding up over his newest incarnation of tinted eyewear. 

“That would be ideal.”

Aziraphale let his eyes travel over the glasses, then over the demon’s whole ensemble. 

Crowley usually stuck to the middle class of society. It was far more useful to be interpreted as a social climber, he had told Aziraphale before, than someone important. It led to less fawning and more access. It was unusual, then, to see him decked out in a nobleman’s attire. Yet he was, today. His black mantle was cut of thick, luxurious material. The jerkin underneath marked out by its rather fine satin piping around the edges. The edge of a scarlet doublet provided the outfit’s only flash of colour, worn between the black jerkin and the finely embroidered neckline of his shirt. He was very well dressed, indeed. 

The only thing missing was a hat and that was because Crowley hated hats. Always had done, Aziraphale thought, letting his eyes drag once more over his friend. He thought they made his chin look weak, vain thing that he was.

“You look as if you’re doing well for yourself.”

“I am,” the demon answered, simply. “The sixteenth century becomes me.”

A little smile twitched the angel’s lips. It rather did, actually. Vain thing.

“Where to for lunch, then?” He asked, moving to stand beside his friend and look out over the dignitaries, who were fussing over greetings and ensuring that people were seen to in a hierarchical manner. 

“What do you fancy? Do we need to deal with any of your belongings, first?” The demon asked, nodding to the porters, who were unloading trunks from the back of the coach. 

Aziraphale shook his head. 

“No, I will not be staying separate to the rest of the delegation. I’ve arranged for my things to be sent to some rooms I know of, in the north of the city.”

“Not wanting to slum it, are we?” 

“Quite the opposite, actually,” the angel admitted. “Sometimes it's nice to get away from court.”

The demon gave a grunt of acknowledgement and the pair of them wandered off, discussing what sort of lunch they were both in the mood for. 

.

They strolled through Rome at a leisurely pace, after spending an hour or two in one of Crowley’s favourite dining halls, where everyone seemed to know the demon as ‘Antonio’ and nobody stared too long at his glasses. Aziraphale’s opposite number took him down to the river, and showed him a new boat that a local Duke had commissioned, pointing out its elegantly carved head and the great silk flags on its mast. He told a few tales of the envy and excess he had been spreading, throughout the Venetian families, up the road.

It seemed to have been a very successful century for him, the angel mused, as he listened and leant against the railings, watching a pair of swans circle in the water below. Crowley appeared in his element. He seemed more relaxed than he had been a few centuries ago. Then again, Aziraphale could hardly blame him. While the angel had spent the fourteenth century in the countryside attending to a monastic order, the demon had been up to his neck in the plague, the hundred years’ war and religious persecution. It hadn’t sounded like a pleasant time. 

After wandering for a few hours, Crowley offered to bugger off for a bit while Aziraphale explored the holy city. A new Basilica was being built and apparently it was quite the sight. He could just about get by within the Vatican’s walls, the demon admitted. (It was not so holy a place as to be exclusionary of the unholy, after all. Greed, lust and envy reigned abounds). But it was not a pleasant experience. It felt a bit like a sunburn, the demon explained - a hot, throbbing reminder of ‘you’re not meant to be here’. 

Aziraphale had no particular desire to be parted, however, so he had made some excuse about already having plans to see the Basilica later in the week and they had wandered on. 

They wandered right up until dinner time, at which Crowley had turned and asked if he wanted to come along to a party that evening. It was going to be gaudy and riotous and it was definitely not the sort of place anyone should expect to find an angel. Some young prince was coming of age and all of his lordly friends were gathering to wish him well on his way to debauchery. It was a good thing he wouldn’t get his inheritance until the following year, Crowley commented, lounging against the side of a cart. All of it would be blown on dames and horses by midnight. 

There had been a challenge in the way the demon made the invitation - a hint of a _‘I dare you_ ’ in his eyes. The party was somewhere that Aziraphale would definitely never have ventured on his own - certainly not within a city where he knew so few humans. Even if he had gone to such a place, he would have made it about work - about steering someone away from the path of vice - but Crowley was suggesting they went purely as a social venture. He was not there to conduct a temptation, after all. He had already told Aziraphale that his duties in the city were concluded. He was heading back to Venice at the end of the week. His time, now, was his own. 

So, it was an offer of companionship. And a bit of debauchery. And clearly Crowley was not expecting Aziraphale to say yes - the angel could see that in his eyes. That was, perhaps, why he had agreed. It was nice to surprise Crowley now and again. The demon got that little grin where he held his mouth open for too long - that little shadow of how he had looked on that first day they had met, when Aziraphale admitted that he had given away his flaming sword. 

_You what?_

Delight, and amusement, and just a little bit of mockery. 

“Well, okay then, angel.” Crowley had grinned. “If you’re feeling brave.”

.

So that was how Aziraphale ended up at a gathering within the gilded halls of Rome’s highest society. That was how he ended up drunk and sprawled on a velvet chaise-longe beside the demon, listening as his friend remarked on the comings and goings, and who was dancing with whom, and what it meant that someone had turned their back on someone else - all the little secrets of his world. 

The party was, indeed, utterly debauched. There was more alcohol than could possibly be drunk. There was the finest food and everyone was wrapped in the most expensive clothing. The guests were all men, as befit the occasion and current societal norms, but a number of scantily clad women strolled among them, draping themselves over an arm, or making little hints and suggestions. 

Crowley fielded one or two of them, early on in the evening, showing delight at the attention but a complete lack of interest in what they were offering. The host and a few of his friends came over, at one point, to clap Crowley around the back and exchange a few words. After that, however, the angel and demon were left alone on their chaise. 

They talked well into the night. Aziraphale told Crowley about his journey over by sea. Crowley shared the story of his own journey and what he had come to the city to do. He had been corrupting a local politician, he told the angel. (I won’t tell you who, so don’t ask - though he’s hardly any worse than the rest of them). 

The young man had been considering turning back on his career and retiring to his father’s estate in the countryside, to focus on more scholarly pursuits. He had been inspired by a particular sermon about humility, at his local church. But Crowley was cunning. Instead of contradicting the teachings, he had instead laced little signs and meaningful happenstances through the young man’s week, confirming the teachings, but slanting them in a way that implied the young man was to stop focussing on the humility of his own soul and focus instead on the humility of others’. 

“He’ll be judging his way to pride in no time,” he declared, fondly, at the end of it. “And he’ll keep working on that new closed sewer system - which will be a huge relief, I’m telling you. This place is abhorrent in the summer.”

Aziraphale hummed and drank a bit more of his wine, and tried not to think too hard about the demon’s words. He was never sure if what Crowley did was evil, or self-interested, or something more chaotically neutral. He did his best not to ponder it too hard. Because pondering such things often brought up difficult questions about morality and the nebulous nature of good and evil, and where they fit into everything. 

He knew that some of what Crowley did must be evil - he was a demon, after all - but it had been a long time since he’d witnessed anything that could be viewed purely that way. Just like it had been a long time since anything he had been sent to do, by Heaven, felt purely good. 

Pushing his mind away from work, Aziraphale turned the conversation back around to the partygoers, asking Crowley questions about current etiquette and who the favourites of the court were, and what they all did to amuse themselves. The demon answered him eagerly, embroidering the details with little stories and rumours. As celebrations reached a new peak, a man with a lute struck up a rousing song over by the card tables and the angel and the demon moved closer, to be able to talk over the din. 

They moved far closer than they needed to, if Aziraphale was honest with himself. The lute was loud, but not that loud. Certainly, it did not require Crowley to sling one arm over the back of the chaise, the tips of his fingers brushing the angel’s shoulder. Certainly, it did not require him to lean so close that the outside of their thighs touched, or that Aziraphale could feel the heat of his side. Certainly, when Crowley wanted to elaborate on some point, he did not have to tilt his head so that his warm breath tickled Aziraphale’s neck, but he did so anyway. And Aziraphale let him. He let the flirtatious touches continue because flirting was a very new development, in the great saga of knowing one another, but he enjoyed it very much. 

The whole routine was something they’d only segued into, this past century. They would lunch, then they would wander, then they would drink and, one way or another, they would find themselves sitting or standing somewhere, touching a little too much and holding gazes for a little too long. After twenty years of doubting his own interpretation of the ritual, the angel had decided that it definitely was flirting. Because he knew Crowley very well, after all, and he had seen the little movements the demon was making before - never directed towards him, of course, but he had seen them. 

He had seen Crowley charm his way past an armed guard. He had seen him wrap himself sinuously around the arm of a Roman general and pull his attention away from shenanigans happening elsewhere in a room. Crowley flirted. It had just never been directed towards Aziraphale, in the past. 

And now it was. And Aziraphale liked it. And he hated that he liked it, because he was very aware that his friend could be a bit of a tease and that the whole situation was likely to turn around and bite him in the ass, but he could not help himself. As crowded as the world had grown, the angel still found himself starved for attention, for that feeling of being known and appreciated - and that was what Crowley had taken to offering, in the late hours of their little meetings. Wherever they were, the demon would tune out the rest of the world, will the humans away from them, and focus all of his attention on Aziraphale. And Aziraphale was a complete fool for it. He revelled in it, every time it happened. 

Crowley’s continued interest, over the past hundred years, had led to the angel developing a bit of an infatuation, actually. If he was perfectly honest with himself (and he tried not to be) he spent a lot of time thinking about Crowley, and how good and how bad he was, and how clever all his little stories were, and how nice he had smelled. 

He knew it was completely ridiculous. They were friends. No - not even friends - they were that strange, nebulous ‘everything’ to one another. Enemies and confidants, comfort and danger. It was foolish to let his mind wander to what they could never be, but his mind wandered anyway. It was just so nice to feel something for someone and not have it snatched away again, in a handful of decades. If he was completely honest with himself (and he tried never to be) it was turning into a little more than an infatuation. 

Beside the angel, Crowley had turned the conversation to artistic talent in the area. He had just mentioned Raphael Santi, with whom Aziraphale was on speaking terms, and the angel took a moment to pipe up about his acquaintance’s wonderful frescoes. 

So full of life, he told the demon - so serene but vibrant in colour. Santi was the finest draughtsman he had seen since that young man in Greece, the one who had perished in that earthquake. 

“And his work for the papal court is truly astounding,” Aziraphale went on. “When Signor Bartolomeo introduced us, a few years ago, I had no idea that he would receive such commissions.”

“Are you sure you didn’t help out, here and there?” The demon asked him, amusement in the slivers of eye that the angel could make out, past the tinted glasses. "A little heavenly nudge in the right direction..."

Aziraphale frowned. 

“Of course not - he won that commission entirely on his own merit!”

“There were a number of very fine artists competing for the job.”

“Yes, and I think the choice was well made, in the end.”

“Oh, you only like him because he paintss angelsss…” the demon hissed, a little sibilant in his cups. His expression was playful and the angel found himself rolling his eyes. 

“Don’t be absurd.” 

“No? You prefer his sketches of nude fighting men?” 

“He is an acquaintance of your man, Leonardo, you know,” Aziraphale continued, ignoring the comment. “I hear their styles are favourably compared.”

“Hah.” The demon curled a lip. “Unlikely. Leo’s not a painter, angel, he’s a magician.” He spread fingers dramatically through the air. “You can’t even see where he blends colour together, to make light.” 

“And yet, for all your admiration, you mentioned making acquaintance with his old nemesis, just the other week!”

“Only for business,” Crowley growled.

They sat for a while and talked about Michelangelo, and the painter’s own work on saints and angels. (It was a common topic, at the moment). They both agreed that, while they preferred their own men, the Florentine was very talented. Then, they moved on to abusing the Vatican over their political choices in commissions. Crowley admitted to having spent quite a bit of time, over the last few years, convincing everyone who had been granted a commission to add a bit more nudity to their compositions, as revenge.

“Will cheer the place up, a few cocks,” he said, as he refilled the angel’s wine glass. 

Aziraphale did his very best to look scathing. 

Crowley also offered the slightly work-related information that he had introduced Michelangelo to one of his friends, the younger of the two Cavalieri brothers. “I think they’ll get on famously,” the demon smirked, as he looked off around at the party. 

The angel frowned. 

“Why is Hell so very interested in the Venetian political scene, all of a sudden?”

“Not Hell,” the demon shook his head. “This one is a pet project. Something personal.”

“And how does a simple introduction lead to the ensnaring of a man’s soul?”

Crowley frowned slightly, into the distance. 

“Obsession,” he eventually hissed, the word strangely low and smooth on his tongue. “Obsession can enssnare any ssoul, angel.”

“And this obsession would be… artistic?” Aziraphale’s voice came out more innocently than he could have hoped, but Crowley still saw right through it. 

Head turning, he gave a bark of laughter.

“You know, I don’t think that’s any of your holy business, Aziraphale!” They eyed one another, from a foot or so away. There was something in the demon’s eyes, suddenly. Something hungry. “Want to get out of here?” Crowley asked, voice a little low. “I have wine back at my rooms. Disgustingly expensive Bordeaux. Come back and help drink it, and I’ll let you talk art at me for as long as you like.” 

Aziraphale knew, meeting his eyes, that the offer was not about wine, or art, or literally anything other than getting him alone. It was a calculated move. And it was a calculated decision to accept. Crowley was a demon. He wanted things that the angel really should not offer, but Aziraphale’s friend had never pushed too far in asking. He had always just let it lie there, beneath the surface - a vague possibility of more. And it was so nice to feel wanted, even if it was by a being who would probably earn a commendation for seducing an angel to lust, even if temptation was Crowley's stock and trade. Aziraphale did not believe the demon would ever use him to gain advantage with his demonic overlords. Though he knew he shouldn’t, he trusted his friend. 

So, he agreed to go back to Crowley’s rooms and drink the demon’s expensive wine. He agreed, because the world was a very large place to be alone in and it had been a very long time since someone had looked at him like Crowley was looking at him now.

.

They headed back, arm in arm, along narrow Roman roads, bantering the whole time - verbally sparring just enough to push them into real sparring, into giving gentle nudges into each other’s shoulders - pushing one another away, so they could stumble back together again - so that Crowley could snake his arm around the angel’s, and hiss, and make a fuss.

They found the door of the apartments and pushed their way inside without a key, then began climbing up the grand central staircase (Crowley was never one for understatement). 

The apartments were stunning, all sweeping lines and pale stone, rich tapestries and gold. It was just short of ostentatious - so very Crowley, thought Aziraphale, as he followed his friend’s dark clad form up to the top floor and through a towering double door. Inside, he found that the demon’s rooms overlooked the Tiber. Like the rest of the building they were spacious and high ceilinged. It took nearly a good few minutes to walk through them all, along a long corridor, past a few half open doors - a bedroom, another bedroom, a small library, a great tiled room with a marble bath - before arriving in a grand reception room. 

Inside, Crowley motioned for Aziraphale to take a seat on one of the luxurious sofas and clicked his fingers to light a selection - but not all - of the candles. Then, he crossed over to one of the long windows and pulled the shutters back, stepping out onto the narrow half balcony. 

“There we go,” he exclaimed, casting a look back at the angel. “You can piss into the river from this balcony. Best view in the city.” He turned and lounged against the window frame. 

Aziraphale watched him, keenly aware that Crowley knew how impressive he looked, illuminated by moonlight, the river stretching out behind him, the pinpricks of city light stretching out even further, towards the horizon. It was all perfectly engineered. The rooms were beautiful and the demon was beautiful, and he knew it. He was clearly craving attention just as much as Aziraphale was tonight, and the angel found himself in no mood to deny his friend. It had been a good day, and he was feeling indulgent. 

“I think we’ll just about manage, don’t you?” He smiled. Giving Crowley praise was an investment the demon repaid, tenfold. “It is a beautiful place, my dear. Well chosen.”

Looking pleased with himself, Crowley wandered back through the room, depositing tinted glasses, jerkin and doublet to the floor as he went, leaving him in a shirt whose tails he untucked and whose sleeves he rolled up as he poached around the place, searching for a bottle of wine. A couple of clinks and some soft swearing later, Aziraphale heard him give a noise of success. Then, he was padding back through the room, grabbing a couple of glasses and kicking his boots off as he went. Stocking clad feet made him suddenly silent in the semi darkness. Just a soft ‘pat’ with each footfall - slightly predatory. 

The angel watched him as he moved about the place, pulling the jerkin of his own ensemble away from his shoulders, and laying it carefully over the back of the sofa. It was warm, near the end of spring, and formal dress was not required, now they were no longer in polite company. He and Crowley had known one another for far too long to worry about what they were wearing (though the demon did like to tease him, when he lagged behind the current fashion). Aziraphale kept his doublet and boots on, however. These were not his rooms. He shouldn’t really go undressing in them. 

Below on the street, occasional noises of merriment rang out through the night. A shout, a laugh, the noise of a horse’s hooves, clattering on stone. The angel could hear a group of soldiers make their way past, talking loudly of their evening plans. A bawdy joke made him smile, faintly. Oh, to be young and human, and so full of hope. From the hotel next door, the faint strains of a cittern struck up a gentle tune. 

Crowley flopped back down beside him on the sofa and they uncorked the wine to pour it, leaving it to breathe on the low table while they talked about nothing in particular; about similarities in the social structures of the time with that of early Rome, the melody of the song playing next door, the lives of their favourite composers. The demon teased the angel for a while about his taste in music, saying he lagged even further behind, there, than in the sartorial. They sobered up for a bit, until the wine was ready, then they drank the alcohol back in again, the angel giving a satisfied little noise at his first sip. It was delicious. The demon knew him too well, knew exactly what he liked. 

As if to prove the point, Crowley reached over and produced a small paper bag of candied nuts, from somewhere behind the sofa, and pressed it into the angel’s hands. Aziraphale ate a few, smiling to himself, then stashed the rest away in his pocket. A memory of the evening, to hold onto. 

Eventually, their conversation lapsed into periods of companionable silence, punctuated by predictions for the future. Aziraphale had always liked this part of the night - when Crowley grew expansive, under the influence of alcohol, and his suggestions grew more and more outlandish. By the time the clock tower around the corner chimed one o’ clock, they were on to positing the future existence of horseless carriages that ran off sunlight, that you could control with your voice. 

“Because they’re clever little things, humans,” the demon slurred, draped over his end of the sofa. “Look at all the things they come up with. Clever big brains. Big clever-,” he hiccuped, “head-brains… way better than ours, when you think about it. Not that I’m even sure we have brains, really. I mean our bodies have brains…” he shook his head, as if to check. “Anyway, better than us for the most part.” Frowning, he took another long sip of wine. “Mmf.”

They had finished the first bottle nearly an hour ago. They were onto his backup - an offering from the south of France, this time. Equally delicious, and expensive, and equally as well chosen for the angel’s enjoyment. Crowley did know his audience. 

“I wouldn’t say better,” Aziraphale countered his friend’s argument, paying only vague attention. “Different, perhaps.”

“They’re brilliant, angel. Look at wine.” He held his glass up. “We didn’t do wine - that was all them! We were still messing around with holy water and…” he waved a hand, causing his wine to slosh but, miraculously, not spill. “…unleavened bread.”

“Unleavened bread is highly practical.”

“Barring the tortilla, unleavened bread is a pile of shite.”

The angel rolled his eyes. "You were always a lamentable debater."

The demon knocked back his last inch of wine. Then, realising it and the bottle were finished, dragged himself up from his semi-reclined position into a marginally more upright one, and swaggered off towards the corner of the room where he kept his stash. 

“My point,” he called back, over his shoulder, voice echoing on the high ceilings. “Is that they invented all the good stuff. We are always just, you know… scrabbling to keep up and figure out what any of it means. I mean, we’re assigning good and evil retrospectively, at this point, if you think about it. It’s not as if we contributed ahead of time to any of the important stuff. Music and writing and alcohol and mathematics and sex - oh, and those mushrooms that you can eat and they let you see sound.” he waved a hand. “Humans did all the good ones.”

“I don’t think we can credit them much with sex,” the angel threw back, admiring the reflection of the chandelier overhead in the surface of his wine. “You leave two people alone in isolation long enough and they’re eventually going to see what they can do with their bodies.”

Giving the wine glass an experimental shake, he watched as the reflection of the chandelier shifted and fragmented, then came slowly back together again as the surface of the wine settled. He looked up, smiling, pleased with his little experiment, to find Crowley watching him raptly across the room. 

“Suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” the demon said, slowly. 

His voice was almost normal, apart from a deep note which Aziraphale had heard only a handful of times before. The angel was suddenly very aware of where the conversation had taken them, and what he had just said, and the fact that he really shouldn’t be talking sex with Crowley - and not just because they were an angel and a demon and the subject was fraught with ecclesiastical implications. 

A few moments from the recent past flickered across his consciousness, moments from the last hundred years where they had come perilously close to taking their strange, complicated relationship down a much more physical path. 

On a rooftop in Morocco, on a summer’s night. In a cave in Cyprus, sheltering from a thunderstorm. In an inn in London, drunk and barely able to focus on one another, let alone what they wanted. 

In the space of a second, the angel remembered it all. Remembered the strange confusion that welled up inside him, and the heat that his friend’s hands could draw from his skin, and the strange blurring of the lines he had drawn around different parts of his life - the lines that he needed, to keep himself from going mad in this place. 

He cleared his throat, forcing his voice to remain cheerful and light. 

“Is more wine happening?” He asked the demon, waving a hand over his nearly empty glass and cleaning it. “What are we drinking this time?” 

Crowley watched him for another long moment, then dipped his head and padded obediently back to the sofa, his movements markedly less wobbly than when he had left. Had Aziraphale been less drunk, he would have realised that the demon was suddenly more sober, but the angel's attention was mainly concerned with looking unconcerned. As Crowley approached, he preoccupied himself with removing his boots, making a bit of a hash of fiddling with the leather so he did not have to meet his friend’s eyes. 

“Something from Pauillac,” the demon said, answering his previous question. “Don’t recall the name.” He didn’t look down to check the label, however. Indeed, he seemed supremely uninterested in this excellent opportunity to show off his knowledge of grape husbandry. It was very unlike him, the angel thought, finally succeeding in removing his second boot and looking up. Crowley liked to show off. 

The demon poured himself a glass of red, then one for the angel. 

“À la tienne,” he raised the bottle, before setting it down on the table. 

“Merci,” the angel forced a smile, knowing it came out slightly too tight, but unable to fix it. “Is this… is this supposed to be good, then?”

Crowley flicked an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s passable.”

“Right.”

The angel took a sip. It was more than passable. It was beautiful, even without a proper chance to breathe. It was powerful yet elegant, with something dark lingering just beneath the surface. Oak and berry and something slightly smokey. Another perfect choice. Three zero, to Hell, this evening. 

The demon watched Aziraphale carefully as he savoured the sip. Then, as if rallying himself, wandered back over to the other end of the sofa and settled back down amongst the cushions. He did not drape himself quite so haphazardly this time, however, and the lean of his body was arranged towards Aziraphale, rather than away. It all felt a little intentional. His arm, resting on the back of the sofa, was close enough to touch, should the angel have reached a hand up. 

“Your turn on the predictions, I think,” Crowley commented, lightly. For the first time ever, Aziraphale found himself wishing that his friend would put his glasses back on, because at least they would dull the intensity of his stare. 

He squirmed in his seat.

“Oh, I don’t know… I'm not very good at this game. You've always been better."

“Go on, give it a shot,” 

Setting down his glass, the angel scanned the room, searching for inspiration. Anything to move the topic along. 

“Erm… wine,” he seized upon a vague idea that he once overheard a vineyard owner discussing, some years before. Sometimes, in the north of France, the cold winters would pause fermentation and restart it in spring, leading to bursts of activity in the wine which would produce bubbles. Entire crops had to be thrown out because of it. Stumbling only slightly over his words, the angel relayed this information to Crowley, who watched with polite interest. “I imagine,” Aziraphale continued, “in the future, perhaps it will be marketed to the less well off customers, instead.”

The demon pulled a face. 

“What? Bubbly wine?”

“Yes,” breathed the angel. “A little niche, perhaps, but it’s like you say - humans are very inventive. I imagine there will be a vigneron one day who needs to make ends meet, and all he will have is his ruined carbonated wine, and he will decide to sell it with the bubbles in.”

“Bollocks he will, angel,” Crowley grinned, that wide, uneven grin that Aziraphale had always appreciated as his most attractive. “He’d be out of business in a year. You really are terrible at this game. Try another.”

“Okay…” the angel grimaced, searching his mind. “Ships that travel through the air,” he offered, a bit lamely. 

“That’s worse than bubbly wine!”

“Well, all right then. You go,” the angel blustered, taking taking a larger sip than was necessary from his glass and sitting primly up in his seat. 

Crowley tilted his head slightly, still half grinning, clearly appraising the situation. The appraisal took all of five seconds, however, before he leant forwards and tugged the wine glass gently out of Aziraphale’s hand. 

Ignoring the angel’s little noise of protest, he set it back down on the table and tilted his head closer. His fingers had curled into the fabric of the sofa beside Aziraphale’s shoulder. They were very close. His moves were very exact, purposeful - entirely too intentional. Aziraphale’s stomach had formed a quivery knot inside of him. 

“I think,” Crowley said, voice calm and careful, eyes never straying from Aziraphale’s, “that one day, you and I will become lovers.” 

The angel sobered up so fast that his body gave a convulsive shudder. 

If he had been holding the wine glass, it would have fallen to the floor and shattered. This, he realised in retrospect, was why Crowley had taken it from him. 

“W-what-?” he stammered, staring in horror at the demon. “I surely… I don't… I couldn’t possibly know what you…”

“I think we’ll end up having sex,” Crowley clarified, completely unnecessarily. 

Aziraphale blinked. 

“Crowley, you can’t just _say_ that,” he blurted, after a long few seconds have passed in silence. 

The demon threw his hands out, in a shrug. “Why not?”

“B…b-because!” 

“You’re allowed to make wild predictions. Why can’t I?” He leant forwards, until he was less than a foot away from Aziraphale, who pressed back into the arm of the sofa. 

“I didn’t make any predictions like that. For goodness sake, we’re-… we’re-,” He stammered. 

“We’re what?” 

“We’re _us_!” Aziraphale exclaimed. 

Crowley raised his eyebrows. 

“I don’t see that as a problem. Sort of the point of this conversation,” he added more quietly - almost to himself. 

Aziraphale spluttered again. 

“Crowley, I am an angel. You are a demon-,” 

“Just two supernatural entities shoved into needy, mortal bodies,” Crowley agreed, giving a wave of his hand. “That’s why it makes sense.”

“Sense?” The angel laughed, incredulously. 

Half of him was sure this was a joke. Why was Crowley acting so calm? Was this all to teach him a lesson? Or to mock him? Had the demon noticed how much the angel had been enjoying his flirtations and decided to use it against him? Surely he was going to break out into a grin, at any moment. He’d laugh and say ’ _got you, angel_ ’, and Aziraphale would blush, but then they would go back to drinking and it would all be fine. 

But Crowley didn’t laugh. Instead, he leaned infinitesimally closer. 

“Yeah. You and me,” he tilted his head, eyes travelling over Aziraphale’s face. “We’re in the same boat - stuck up here, in these bodies, alone… And it’s not as if we haven’t tried it before.”

“How on Earth would you know that?” Aziraphale demanded. 

Crowley considered him, carefully.

“Well, you stopped reacting the same way to my filthy jokes, sometime after seven hundred. Then you made a clever little joke involving warming oil while we were both in Jeddah, in seven thirty - which was hilarious, by the way, but kind of specialist knowledge.” His eyes swept Aziraphale’s face. “So, I would guess someone popped your cherry around seven-ten.” 

“H-how…?” Spluttered Aziraphale. This was genuinely horrific. Not only the conversation, but the fact that Crowley was only three years out, with his guess. “I…”

“More power to you,” the demon shrugged, correctly reading the fluster as confirmation. “You lasted millennia longer than I did. Was made too curious for abstinence, me. Has led to some weird situations, I’ll tell you.”

Aziraphale stared at him, completely at a loss for what to say. He had half a mind to simply vanish on the spot - to disappear to somewhere else and deal with this all some other time, but he couldn’t - and not because of some moral aversion. The protective wards Crowley had placed around his apartments were too strong. Aziraphale would rip his mortal body to shreds trying to transport out of here. Though that was starting to sound appealing at present, he thought, momentarily closing his eyes. This was easily the most embarrassed he had ever been, and he was a creature prone to getting himself into embarrassing situations. 

When he opened his eyes again, he found that Crowley’s expression had softened slightly.

“Is it really such a horrible idea?” The demon asked. His pupils were very dilated and there was something insecure hiding in their reflective dark, beneath the bravado he’d been pushing all evening. Something almost shy.

The blush that had crawled across Aziraphale’s face spread further, down his neck. No, he thought, it was not such a horrible idea. It was not horrible at all, in fact, and it was not as if Aziraphale hadn't considered it, over the years. These past few centuries, he had considered it rather a lot. 

It had been an innocuous thing which had led him there the first time. They had been dining together - no different to any of the times they had eaten together in the past - and Crowley had dripped something on his chin and, instead of telling him, the angel had just instinctively reached out to wipe it away. And the way their eyes had met, afterwards, stirred something into life within him - something which had been existing, dormant but fully fledged, for a long time. 

Aziraphale had found himself wanting to slip his hand further around the demon’s jaw, to lean in and finish the action with a kiss. He had wanted to follow that kiss with another, and not stop. And wanting to do that had confused him so much that he had avoided Crowley for three decades afterwards. 

After that day, there had been a few other moments, separated by enough time that Aziraphale had almost convinced himself that he was just a lonely old sap who needed to get touched more often. A strand of hair brushed from a cheek; a little joke which had left him imagining what Crowley meant by ‘extremely flexible’; a little moment when they had run to seek shelter in a cave from a sudden downpour, where they had fallen to the ground next to one another, breathless and rain soaked, and laughed themselves silly. Aziraphale had spent the next six weeks ruminating on that last one - on the panting noises his friend had made, and the way water had collected in the hollows of his neck. 

And then there were the memories of that very innocent kiss they had shared, all those years ago, in Jerusalem. 

Yes, he had thought about it, Aziraphale could admit. It might have taken him longer than Crowley, but he had thought about it rather a lot. 

Releasing the inside of his lower lip from where he had been biting it, the angel raised his eyes to the demon’s. 

“It’s not horrible,” he began, softly. He was not sure why he was addressing this first - only that the idea of Crowley being unwanted seemed like the most glaring falsehood, in all of this. How could something like Crowley be unwanted? “It’s just…” Aziraphale blushed. “Well, we’re not allowed those sort of things, are we?”

“Don’t see why not,” the demon was still looking cautious, but his eyes had filled with a little anticipation, now that Aziraphale had not immediately turned him down. “We were both put here in these bodies, weren’t we? If we hadn’t been meant to feel with them, why would we be able to?"

“Well, yes, but even if we were meant to… indulge in things like that,” Aziraphale blushed. “We’re definitely not meant to do so with each other. We’re on different _sides_ , Crowley. We serve different masters. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.” 

“Well,” Crowley pulled a face. “I mean, that ship sailed a long time ago, angel. We’ve been friends now for thousands of-,”

“-we’re not friends,” the angel butted in, (insides burning with shame because they were friends, really, even if friendship was a human construct. They were friends. He just couldn’t let Crowley say it. Saying it made it real and real was dangerous…) 

“Okay, okay,” Crowley didn’t seem too bothered by the distinction, today. Probably because he had other priorities. He rolled his eyes. “Not friends,” he confirmed. “But we have been _very, very_ _friendly enemies_ for a long time now, angel. Think about it... Do you reckon that they-,” he motions vaguely upwards, towards the ceiling, “-would make the slightest distinction between us drinking together and fucking?” 

Probably not, thought Aziraphale, his whole face reddening at the word ‘fucking’. Heaven might be disapproving of contact with the other side, but they were disapproving of a lot of things, as a rule. Gabriel was the only one who held much preoccupation with what one did with their mortal flesh. Aziraphale mused that the concept of alcohol would be lost on him entirely. In fact, he wasn’t sure what would horrify the archangel more, the wine or the demon. The idea of both together might make his head combust. 

The angel looked back over at Crowley, at the relentless, steady stare of him and the way his long limbs were thrown gracefully over the sofa. The neck of his shirt had come undone, and was gaping forwards, giving a truncated view of his chest. Aziraphale could see the dark edge of a collarbone and the dip of his sternum. He could see the dark hair that was scattered across it. He thought back to the times he had seen the demon half dressed or naked, over the years, and wondered if he could still trace that hair in an unbroken line, down between his legs. 

Closing his eyes, the angel gave a long sigh, then lifted his head and fixed Crowley back in his gaze. 

“Why?” He asked - unable to stop himself, unable to just say ‘no’. “Why now?” 

Crowley shrugged with the air of a man-shaped creature who definitely had an answer but was unwilling to share it. 

“I’m asking, now,” he said, eventually. “Why does it have to be more complicated than that?”

“Because it means something.” 

“The timing or the act?”

“Both,” Aziraphale answered, firmly. 

The demon rolled his eyes.

“Angel, you said it yourself. Leave two people alone in isolation for long enough and they’re eventually going to see what they can do with their bodies.” 

“I meant the humans.”

“I know what you meant…” 

Reaching down, Crowley helped himself to a sip of Aziraphale’s wine. Whether he did it because the glass was closer or as a proprietary manoeuvre, the angel could not tell. 

“Listen,” the demon sighed. “I just think that we’ve both been alone for a very long time and I, for one, am starting to find the mortality aspect of taking human lovers a bit depressing. That said,” he added, with a grimace, “the thought of continuing on with just myself for company, until the end of time, isn’t a huge deal better.” He took another sip of wine, then replaced Aziraphale’s glass to the table. “I just thought that, well… we’re friends. Or, rather, very friendly enemies,” he corrects, without prompt. “We have a lot in common. We like the same things, and move in the same circles, and… and I think we’re attracted to one another’s physical forms…” Crowley shrugged and looked away. The angel noticed that his cheeks had flushed slightly, and that shyness was back in his voice, again. “I just thought it might be nice, to share a bit of contact with someone and not have to lie about what we are. But nothing has to happen, if you don’t want it to. It was just an offer. If you’re not interested, it’s fine. We can forget all about this,” he waved a hand, vaguely. “Move on. Drink the rest of my good wine and pretend we don’t remember the conversation in the morning. We’re good at pretending.” 

“It’s not about not being interested,” the angel tried to explain, feeling very much as if his friend was missing the point.

The demon’s eyes snapped over. 

“So, you are interested, then?”

“Yes.” Aziraphale spoke before realising, then quickly backtracked, cheeks burning worse than ever. “I mean, no. I mean - oh, for Heaven’s sake. It’s not about that, it’s…” He grimaced. “We don’t get to decide these things!”

“Who says?” Crowley looked pointedly around the room. “There’s nobody here but us, angel. Nobody would know. We could keep it between you and me.” He leant just a tiny bit forwards, across the sofa. “Our secret. Our thing.” 

They watched one another, Crowley’s golden eyes unwavering. 

A long few seconds passed. Then, Aziraphale forced his lips to part, and forced sound from between them. 

“I just… can’t, Crowley.”

It was all he could manage. 

Across the way, the tension in Crowley’s shoulders dropped. Leaning back, the demon let his head fall back against the sofa and gave a low hiss. 

“Naturally,” he muttered. “You _just can’t_.” His mouth gave a little twisting movement, which he passed off as a sneer. “If only I was Tommaso Cavalieri sitting across from you, making the same offer, eh…?”

The little comment piqued Aziraphale’s irritation in a way that he didn’t expect - driving embarrassment and awkwardness momentarily aside. 

“You know perfectly well that’s different, Crowley,” the angel snapped, eyes narrowing. “Don’t put this all on me.”

“Why not? You’re the one who’s making it into a thing.”

“Yes, well I’m the one who’d have to deal with the consequences.”

The demon snarled. “Oh, really?”

“Yes!”

“Only you?”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Crowley. Hell commended you when you tricked Uriel into destroying that Hittite temple. They gave you a title when you ruined Gabriel’s plans, at the stone circle in Penzance. We both know their policy on making the other side look bad. I doubt you’d get a slap on the wrist!” 

Crowley’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“You think this is about me making you look bad?”

“No,” Aziraphale grimaced. He hadn’t meant it like that. He knew that was not what this was about. This was about the burning want in his friend’s eyes - the want that Crowley was allowed to feel but Aziraphale was not. “I just mean that you are a demon, this is what you do, but I’m an _angel_.”

“An angel?” Crowley’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Oh, really? An angel, Aziraphale - I had no idea!” He pulled a face of mock confusion. “So, let me get this straight… As an angel, you’re allowed to spread Heaven around the human population as much as you want, but you’re not even allowed to reach out to one demonic soul? That seems a bit uncharitable of the Almighty.” 

“I didn’t make the rules, Crowley.” 

“No, you don’t get consulted on policy decisions, do you?”

Aziraphale’s stomach clenched. 

“This is exactly the problem, Crowley,” he snapped. “We’re not going to die in fifty years, like Signor Cavalieri. Everything we do has consequences. What we say can get brought up, fifteen hundred years later. This is why it’s better if we keep those parts of our lives separate.”

“So we should just divide ourselves up into neat little boxes?” 

“We should show some sort of control, at least.” 

“Controlled and alone in the gaping void of time,” Crowley spat. “Sounds great.”

“You never wanted companionship,” the angel spat back. “You said it yourself, back in the garden.”

The demon snapped upright, a muscle tensing in his neck, his skin flushed in the half light.

“Oh, yeah… back in the garden, when I’d been on Earth for all of five minutes.” He snarled, showing entirely too much tooth. “Definitely knew what I was talking about, back then. Mind you, it was probably for the best, seeing how companionship pans out… You wanted a companion, didn’t you?” He sneered. “You even went and asked for one. Didn’t bother waiting around for them to turn up, though. Bit of a poor return on investment.” 

It was a comment aimed to wound, fired with intimate knowledge of the target. 

Aziraphale physically flinched. 

A couple of seconds passed in silence, his vision filled with Crowley’s narrowed, golden eyes. At first, it was anger that rose to the surface, molten and sickening. The angel felt rage, the urge to lash out and physically hurt the demon - to cause as much pain as had been done to him - but the feeling did not last. It was almost immediately overwhelmed by a tidal wave of hurt and shame, and the memory of all the hope he had once had, all those years ago.

The emotions mixed horribly in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, Aziraphale felt sick, and broken, and very old. 

Across the sofa, Crowley’s expression shifted, moving imperceptibly away from anger and towards something that might have become guilt.

The angel did not stay to watch. 

He stood, instead, grabbing his belongings with shaking fingers. He pulled his shoes on roughly, not bothering with the jerkin which had too many buttons for him to handle at the moment. Checking that the key to his rooms was in his pocket, he turned and headed towards the door, very aware of Crowley’s eyes following him - very aware of the silence, hanging pregnant and dark in the air between them. 

“ _Aziraphale_ -,” the demon’s voice rang out as his hand reached the doorknob but, though the angel faltered, he did not turn. 

Giving a shove, he pushed through the double door and took the hall in a series of quickening steps. He pushed his way through at the other end, feeling Crowley’s protective magic unwrap temporarily from around the place as he stepped out into the hall, then onto the grand staircase - almost tripping in his haste to get down it and outside. 

Stepping out into the night, the cool air hit his face and warm tears hit along with it. Wrapping his arms around himself, the angel bowed his head to avoid the looks of passers-by and walked very quickly off in the direction of his own rooms, across town. He did not look up to see if the demon was watching from the window with the best view in Rome. He would have seen him if he had. 

.


	7. 1511 CE, Rome, II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They argue. They make up. A new arrangement is suggested.

**1511 CE, Rome**

**Part II**

.

It was possibly the shortest turnaround between any of their meetings before the end of the world. Fewer than three hours had passed between the angel pushing his way out of the demon’s rooms and a hurried knock breaking the melancholic silence of his small apartment. 

Sitting at a scrubbed wooden table, Aziraphale flinched at the sound. There was not much doubt in his mind over who it would be. Few beings could have broken through the protective enchantments in the hall outside, and any of the angels would have barged straight through the inner circle, too. Crowley was the only one who would bother to knock.

A few seconds passed, then the demon knocked again - a frenetic, desperate beat against the wood. 

Again, Aziraphale ignored it.

“Angel?” 

The angel flinched. It had been melancholy that he had been stewing in, alone in the unlit room, but the sound of Crowley’s little endearment stirred anger up from the depths of him. The word bit like acid at the back of his throat. 

He had no right, Aziraphale thought, sharply - Crowley had no right to call him that, right now! He didn’t get to say what he’d said and then come slithering back, calling him ‘ _angel_ ’, as if he were allowed to be here. (Only he did, a calmer voice reasoned. Crowley had the only right. The name was theirs - a little joke, born of friendship. It was their thing. And it was Crowley’s way of trying to build a bridge. He had come to apologise). 

Closing his eyes, Aziraphale felt resignation bubble up inside of him, mixing with the melancholy, and the anger, and strange tides of love. He was being an idiot, he thought. They were both being idiots. He was going to end up answering the door eventually and he might as well do it now, before Crowley woke up half the building. 

The demon knocked again. 

“Aziraphale… angel, come on. Please…”

Pushing his chair back from the table, Aziraphale stood and made his way over to the door of the apartment. His fingers found the thick iron latch and pulled it free, letting the door swing inwards. He opened it a quarter of the way, then rested his forehead against the edge, looking out onto the landing. 

The little apartment resided at the top of the building, made up of two rooms squeezed into a vaulted roof space. It was small and dusty, and the windows did not have fine panes of glass like Crowley’s rooms. It was cold in the winter but it was where Aziraphale had always stayed when he came to town. He had known the family who owned the building for several generations, now. 

The current owner, a young man and his family, would be less than thrilled to see the landing as it was now. Crowley was kneeling in the centre of it, thoroughly dishevelled and dressed in nothing more than he had been wearing back in his apartments - hose, stockings, and a half undone shirt, now with blood staining the left sleeve. The sight of him would definitely get the neighbours talking. 

Aziraphale let his eyes travel over his friend, allowing them to be judgemental for a few moments. Hands out, palms up, the demon was the very picture of silent supplication. He looked very sorry, and very stupid. 

“What do you want?” He asked the demon, coldly. He wanted to address the blood on Crowley’s shirt sleeve, to ask if he was okay, but he resisted. They could get around to that, if his counterpart had anything to say that made him reconsider slamming the door in his face. “Talk.”

Crowley launched straight into his apology, speaking so fast Aziraphale could barely make out the words. 

“Listen, you have every right to tell me to sod off, but hear me out.” His eyes swept Aziraphale’s face, perhaps searching for confirmation that he wasn’t about to be cast violently from the building, or from Earth. “I was being an ass,” he continued, words tumbling over one another in their haste. "I said what I said to hurt you and I had plenty of reasons, but they are reasons not excuses, so I’m just going to leave them where they belong.” He threw his hands out a bit wider, the movement like a benediction. “This is me, apologising, alright?” He grimaced. “I’m on my knees, apologising, and I’m going to keep apologising until you hear it… I’ll stay all night if I have to.”

“That would be unnecessarily dramatic,” Aziraphale replied, coolly. 

The demon eyed him, but did not move from his position on the floor. 

He looked so stupid, the angel thought, eyes dragging over his friend’s bloodied shirt and disheveled hose. It was so Crowley, so ridiculous, to think that kneeling would help his cause. He was such a fool. Eyes travelling over the sleeve of the demon’s shirt, Aziraphale wondered once more where the blood had come from. There had been none when he’d left earlier. What had his friend done in his absence? 

“Are you injured?” He asked, curtly. 

Crowley glanced down at his sleeve, then up again. 

“Oh, no. Nothing to worry about.” 

“Right.” 

Aziraphale didn’t say ‘good’. He was not there yet. 

“I, um…” Crowley shifted from one knee to the other, looking uncomfortable. His golden eyes darted around the angel’s face, searching for a chink in his thunderous expression. “I really am sorry, you know… Didn’t mean what I said. Was being an idiot…” 

An idiot, indeed. There was a staged aspect to how he was appearing here, Aziraphale thought, but then there was a staged aspect to most of what Crowley did. The demon was dramatic by nature. And this had not been done to make himself look better, the angel reasoned. This was his friend, half dressed and desperate to be heard, kneeling uncomfortably on a floor in a position that looked very much like prayer. It had been a conscious choice, to lower himself, to humble himself. For a creature such as Crowley, whose pride was eclipsed only by his insecurities, it was a meaningful gesture. 

Aziraphale felt his anger-forged resolution slide a little. Lifting his forehead from the side of the door, he considered the demon. Crowley was sorry. He was going to stay there, on the landing, for as long as Aziraphale needed, to think things through. The angel had half a mind to leave him there for the rest of the night, but he suspected that he wouldn’t get any peace, knowing Crowley was out there, and he wanted to make sure that the blood hadn’t been from anything sinister. 

Also, the neighbours would talk. 

“Come in,” he muttered, stepping back from the door. 

He did not watch Crowley last he demon made his way inside. Instead, he walked over to the table and picked up the cup sitting there, looking down at the inch or so of brown liquid sitting at the bottom. He decided to drink the coffee rather than pour it into the pot by the window. It was cold now, nearly an hour after brewing, but the sharp bitter taste gave him the kick he needed to turn around and face his friend, loitering just inside of the doorway. 

“What do you want me to say?” He asked, voice more than a little harsh. 

Crowley shrugged. He looked very awkward, indeed, now that he was inside the apartment. He was gripping on to one forearm with the opposite hand, eyes sweeping the apartment, fixing everywhere but on Aziraphale. A quickened pulse was visible in the crook of his neck. 

“I don’t _want_ you to say anything.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I just… feel like I owe you an explanation, or something. I dunno…”

Aziraphale watched him icily. 

“Please, don’t feel as if you _owe_ me anything.” 

“That's not what I-,” Crowley grimaced, then let go of his arm and stood up a bit straighter. “Fuck it, Aziraphale, I _need_ to give you an explanation. Things don't have to be okay tonight, but I need to fix this, alright? It’s shit when we’re not talking. I don’t want to deal with this place on my own.” 

The statement was so gutturally honest, delivered with such lack of refinement, that the angel felt the glare drain from his expression. The tension in his shoulders released.

Stepping back, he leant against the edge of the table to steady himself.

Across the room, Crowley squirmed. 

“Will you please say something?” 

“It hurt,” the angel murmured. “What you said _hurt_.”

“I know.” The demon’s voice was soft and very dark. “It was meant to.”

“But why?” Aziraphale asked. There was a note of pleading in his voice that he hadn’t quite intended. 

Crowley gave a noise of irritation that was almost certainly directed at himself.

“I don’t know…” He grimaced, looking at the floor. “Felt like shit. Wanted to make you feel like shit. Mission accomplished, right?” 

“You’re an idiot. All of this about sex?” 

“I was offended, or whatever… So, yeah.” 

Aziraphale watched the demon, watched thoughts and feelings ride through him, leaving traces on his face. The little movements were all so familiar. The tightening of Crowley’s skin around the corners of his eyes, the lines that formed across his forehead, the angle of his mouth; all little signs that a battle was going on inside. 

After a full minute, the demon finally opened his mouth.

“Angel, I think I-,” 

The sentence stalled after only four words, however, and his voice trailed miserably off into silence. Somewhere, in the distance, a clock chimed and the demon turned his face towards it, looking out the window. After thirty seconds, it became clear that he wasn’t going to say any more.

Aziraphale looked away, too, looked down at floor, trying to ground himself by wrapping his arms around his chest. This was such a stupid situation to have found themselves in. Acting like a couple of humans. Arguing about something that should have meant very little to them - something that was quite irrelevant to the greater picture of how screwed they were, when Heaven found out they were on speaking terms. 

Sex was a ridiculous thing to worry about, he thought, when they were already performing favours and miracles for one another. It only mattered because they had been down on Earth for so long. It only mattered because humans often equated sex with love - and love was not such a terrible word for how Aziraphale felt about Crowley. 

The emotions surrounding their relationship had always been layered and complex. As an angel, Aziraphale was supposed to love all of God’s creations passively. That was the instruction Heaven had given him, in the beginning, and he had always done his best to live up to it. How he felt for Crowley, however, was not even close to that kind of love. Even in the earliest days of the world, there had been more to it than that. He had respected and appreciated the demon - first as an adversary and then, later, as a friend. Despite all that their masters and Earth had placed between them, they had grown steadily closer. The demon had become that strange ‘everything’ to him; balance and anchor, challenger and confidant. 

Crowley cared about him, too. Aziraphale was sure of it. He was a being of love, after all, and there had been plenty of times, throughout history, where he had sensed emotion shifting within the demon. Even though the greater part of Crowley’s soul remained hidden behind a thick veil of protective magic, Aziraphale knew that his friend cared about him - in whatever capacity a demon had for such things. Certainly, Crowley liked and trusted him. Trusted him enough to share his time, and his miracles, and apparently also his body. 

Eyes focussed on the floorboards, the angel let out a long, slow breath. Crowley had been interested in exploring the physical for a long time. Even before they had been on strictly friendly terms the angel could remember little displays of want - little moments he had not thought much of, at the time, but which made his skin burn in retrospect. 

Crowley was not changing the game, here, tonight. He’d made it very clear, these last few hundred years, what he was interested in and Aziraphale had not shown any objection. Rather the opposite, in fact. He’d encouraged the flirtations. He’d made a few of his own. He’d liked being an object of interest in Crowley’s life. The demon was beautiful and clever, and being wanted by him made Aziraphale feel important and valuable. And, somewhere amongst all that want, another type of love had grown inside their strange ‘everything’ bond. 

Infatuation. Obsession. 

What was it Crowley had said, earlier tonight? 

_Obsession can ensnare any soul, angel._

It certainly had Aziraphale’s. The angel thought about his friend far too much. He hung too much importance on the moments they spent together. The demon had become the epicentre of his earthly existence. Ownership bit around the edges of their relationship. Something possessive. Aziraphale knew that Crowley wasn’t his, couldn’t be his, but it felt that way sometimes. Their bond was the only thing that had persisted through time. It was the only thing that belonged to Aziraphale, rather than to his masters. And it was precious to him. The stories and jokes, and moments of wordless communication, the references that only they understood; it was all incredibly precious to him. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes. 

Oh, they should never have allowed themselves to get so close, he thought, with a sigh. They should never have started meeting up, or dining together, or keeping up a correspondence. It had been a gross miscalculation on his part. Crowley was a demon, made to stretch the rules, but he should have known better. He should have known this would lead them into dangerous territory.

He referred to Crowley as his friend, even inside his own head, but friendship was a gross misrepresentation of what they were. Entirely inadequate, really. Friendship meant mutual liking and respect, between two individuals - but he and Crowley were much more than two individuals. More than just their human skins. They were physical representatives of good and evil, here on Earth; complete and perfect counterparts, destined to destroy one another. 

And that was what made this dangerous. It might feel like they were creatures of this Earth, but this assignment was only temporary. One day, this world would come to an end, and he and Crowley would stand on either side of a battle. One day, they would have to fight, or be put to death as traitors. 

They had been created for a specific purpose, Aziraphale thought. They did not have the choices that humans had. They did not have the luxury of friendship, or the freedom to explore the tender, mortal wants that had crept up between them these past thousand years. They were not mortal, not human, and not friends… and they certainly wouldn’t make anything easier by becoming lovers… however wonderful that might feel at the time.

Aziraphale clenched his jaw. 

That last thought wasn’t helpful. In the aftermath of their argument, his mortal body was desperately craving touch. He wanted to feel sensation, comfort, abandon, and release. He was so lonely. So stupidly, mind-numbingly lonely, and so very much in love with the creature standing opposite him - this pale, beautiful demon with his clever tongue, and his golden eyes, and his fire-licked hair - this creature he had no business loving. 

Lifting a hand, Aziraphale ran it roughly over his own face, feeling the comforting pressure of skin on skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Crowley mumbled again, across the way. 

There was such a pleading note in his voice that the angel looked up. He had almost forgotten what their conversation was about, lost in his thoughts, until Crowley spoke again. 

“What I said was absssolute bollockss. I only ssaid it to pisss you off. And I know my opinion doessn’t count for much, because I'm a demon and an idiot, and I never know when to keep my damned mouth shut, but I don’t think you did anything wrong…” Long pupils danced over Aziraphale’s face, apologetic and bright, and somehow still heavy with want. “Anyone Heaven chose to be your companion would be lucky to have you.”

Whatever part of Aziraphale that was still holding onto anger broke. 

He sagged back against the table, dropped his hands to his sides. 

Didn’t do anything wrong, indeed. He had done plenty wrong in this world - and not only on Heaven’s orders. It was easy to let Crowley read conviction into the choices he made but, under the front, Aziraphale was as unsure and confused as anyone. He didn’t know what would come of The Plan. He didn’t know why there had to be good and evil, or Armageddon, or a war - or why he and Crowley had to be on opposite sides of it all. He was just doing the best that he could with limited information. 

“It’s okay,” Aziraphale murmured, and he was surprised to find that he meant it. 

It was okay. What Crowley had said hurt, but the demon had been hurting, too. He’d spent an eternity hurting and his reactions to complex social situations were not the best. Aziraphale had always known that about him. Crowley was the sort of creature who felt scared, or humiliated, and lashed out. — who snapped and bit and pushed others away. He had become better, over the years, but there were some things hardwired into him through suffering. 

Crowley had meant to hurt him, but he was genuinely sorry and Aziraphale knew he would not do it again. 

It was over, now. Just another painful memory. 

“How did you find this place, anyway?” He asked the demon, as a way of moving the conversation onto safer ground. He was relieved to hear that his voice sounded like his own again. The cold chill in it had vanished. “It’s supposed to be protected.” 

“Spent a lot of time bouncing energy off buildings,” Crowley answered quickly, clearly keen to keep the conversation moving now they were not actively arguing. “Took a while, but I found the traces of your magic and followed it here. I know your signature pretty well by now. Fucked the back window of a cathedral right up, in the process.”

Aziraphale glanced down, at the blood on his arm. 

“Is that how-?”

“No. That was, uh… Put my hand through a mirror. Back in the apartment.”

The angel frowned. 

“Yeah, I know.” The demon cringed. “Stupid. Juvenile. The usual demonic nonsense.” 

Aziraphale made a noncommittal little noise, at the back of his throat.

“May I see?” 

Almost tripping over his feet with willingness, Crowley staggered over to the table and held out his arm. There were pink marks over his wrist and the back of his hand. A few ragged scars marked the edges of his fingers. It was mostly healed but not perfect. 

Reaching out, Aziraphale lay his fingers against the skin. His friend had done a decent job but Aziraphale’s power to heal was, by far, the more powerful of the two. Wrapping his palms gently around the demon’s forearm, he washed magic over his broken skin, not caring a toss if it fell outside his Heavenly remit. Tonight, he was bending reality not at his Lord’s will, but at his own. A little healing was the least he could take back after a lifetime of sacrifice, he thought, rebellion sparking to life inside of him. And it was as Crowley had said, earlier. They were alone in a dark room and nobody would know but them. It could be their secret. Their thing. 

Watching the little cuts heal, Aziraphale made a split-second decision. They were already there, he thought, looking up at Crowley’s golden eyes - unshielded by tinted glasses and only making half a pretence at humanity. They were already in this up to their necks. When the end of the world came, he would already be unable to strike Crowley down - no matter who was watching, no matter the stakes. He already cared too much. And, if anyone learned of his treachery before then, he would be condemned for all of it. There would be no distinction between loving a demon and healing his wounds and touching his mortal body in other ways. Sex was entirely besides the point, in the grand scheme of what Heaven would damn him for. And it was all he wanted, at this moment in time. 

“Does it hurt?” He asked the demon, rubbing a thumb over the back of one warm hand. 

“Nah. Healed it pretty well, earlier. Though they look much better, now,” Crowley added, as if to assure the angel that he was not ungrateful. 

Aziraphale felt a tiny smile pull at the corner of his mouth. 

“Good.” 

A few moments passed. Crowley stood very still. Eventually, when half a minute had gone, he gave an awkward little shrug and asked; 

“Should I keep apologising? I have a lot of sorry left in me.” 

Aziraphale shook his head. 

“No.”

“Are you still pissed?” 

“A little, but it’s okay.” The angel sighed at his friend. “I’ll get over it. If you’re really sorry, then I forgive you.” 

Crowley gave a strange little twisting movement, the muscles in his arm tensing as if the words had hurt. Thinking back on it later, Aziraphale supposed that his friend had spent the last however-many thousand years thinking about forgiveness, and that the moment was an echo of all he had imagined. 

“Which part do you forgive?” Crowley asked, sounding very ashamed. 

“Any of it. All of it. Whatever you’d like forgiven.” 

A few seconds passed in silence. The demon’s eyes darted around the angel’s face, as if trying to catch some part of it in a lie. 

“Feels like a person should have to do a lot more grovelling, for an open offer of forgiveness from an angel...” 

Curling fingers around Crowley’s thumb, Aziraphale sighed. He was done with talking. Done with the argument. He wanted to move on, to feel better. 

“Take me to lunch sometime, instead?” 

“Done,” the demon slipped his hand around to hold Aziraphale's, as if they were meeting with a handshake. “Deal.”

His palm was warm. Aziraphale smiled at the absurdity of the motion. 

It was an odd moment - standing across from one another in the small, unlit flat, high amongst the uneven roofs of Rome. It was both very them and not very them at all. The back and forth of their conversation was normal. The barely veiled emotion in the air was not. Their state of half undress was new, too. They were both wearing no more than hose and a shirt. They were used to many more barriers between their skin, but it felt oddly right in the moment. It felt oddly right to have reached this moment the way they had. 

Aziraphale gave a little sigh. 

“We’d need to agree on a few things first,” he ventured, stroking the pad of his thumb over the tip of Crowley’s, feeling that this moment would have been a lot more awkward if they hadn’t just fought for the first time in millennia. If they hadn’t just made up. “Ground rules.”

Crowley frowned. 

“For lunch?” 

“No.” The angel steadied himself. “If your offer is still open, I’d like to say yes.”

Crowley blinked - a mark of how surprised he was, because he didn’t really need to blink and had never really got the hang of doing it for appearance's sake. His hand, still clasped in Aziraphale's, gave a little twitch. Standing a bit more upright, the demon eyed the angel as if his words might be a trap. 

“We will need to keep this separate from work,” Aziraphale continued, knowing the only way to disabuse his friend of such a notion was to double down. “Stay away from places our masters know about, not talk about it, or meet up any more often. But, so long as we’re careful, I don’t think that it would put us in any more danger than we already are.” 

Crowley’s lips parted, but no words came out. 

Aziraphale watched him, patiently. 

The demon tried again. Failed again. 

The angel decided to try a new tactic. Lifting Crowley’s fingers to his lips, he pressed a gentle kiss against the tips of them, then another to the inside of his wrist - a little show of willingness, a step outside his comfort zone. It was not a gesture they had shared in the past and it was intended to show Crowley that he was taking this seriously. 

Sure enough, the movement stimulated the demon to strangle out a few words. 

“You mean… you think we should-, you’d like to-?”

“Sex.”

“Right.”

“That is, if you still want to?” 

“I-,” Crowley blinked again, then gave his head a little shake, as if to try and clear it. “But what about all that you said, earlier?” 

Heaving a sigh, Aziraphale looked around the room, searching for the best way to put it into words.

“You caught me by surprise, Crowley, but you did have a point,” he eventually settled on. “I don’t think anybody would make the slightest distinction between what we do already and anything we might do in bed.” He flushed a little. “So long as it doesn’t compromise our work, I don’t really see a downside.” 

That wasn’t strictly true. The angel could see plenty of downsides - but they were all vague, emotional things that didn’t hold up to the burning need inside of him. He had been alone for so long. He needed this. He needed something more and his friend did too. The emotional stuff he could deal with later. He had been dealing with his silly little infatuation for years, now, after all. He could manage a little more complexity. What was one more secret compared to being held by someone who knew him? 

“It’s just another Earthly thing, isn’t it? A drive that our mortal bodies have. Just like the need to eat, or drink.” He tried for casual. Almost hit it. “And it can get so complicated with humans.”

“Yeah, it can…”

And he needed this. He needed touch and he wanted Crowley. And-, 

“I trust you.” Aziraphale said the words quietly, meeting the demon’s eyes with as much bravery as he could manage. “If you trust me, too, I’d like to give it a try.”

His friend watched him, brow furrowing. 

“Aziraphale… are you sure? Because I can’t take this back, once we’ve gone there. I can’t turn back time.” He squirmed. “Or change what I am.” 

He looked most nervous over the last part but, strangely, Aziraphale found it the least worrying. Demons could not love in the same way as angels. That, he had been told by Heaven, was why they fell. For Crowley, this was all likely a passing fascination - a reaction to all the interest Aziraphale was pouring out in his direction. And that made it somehow easier to justify his actions. 

One day, probably soon, Crowley would lose interest in that side of them and they’d drift back to what they were before. A natural end. Aziraphale wasn’t expecting forever. He knew they couldn’t have that. But if they were meeting anyway, he reasoned, was it really so terrible to share some comfort against the terrible isolation of the world? A nice distraction with someone he felt comfortable with.

It occurred to him, as his eyes traveled over Crowley’s face, that he was using his friend a little. But Crowley knew the score. This was his decision, too. 

“I’m sure,” he told the demon. “I mean, we’re already in this, aren’t we?” He gave a nervous smile. “All the things we’ve done for one another, over the years... The Arrangement… All of that... We might not be allowed to claim one another as friends, but there is no point in pretending that we’re not terribly important to one another, is there? The others wouldn't understand, but they’re not down here, are they?” His eyes rested on Crowley’s mouth. “They don’t know what it’s like, to be left in a physical world, alone. This might sound like another silly human thing, for them, but if it would make things more bearable for us…” The demon was biting at the inside of his bottom lip in concentration. “I’d like to,” Aziraphale whispered. “That is, if you would too?” He felt breathless, all of a sudden, and trailed off, waiting for Crowley to answer. 

A few moments passed in high tension. Then, the demon reached out, laying a hand gently against the angel’s side. His fingers wrapped around the fabric of Aziraphale's shirt, the palm of him very warm. He gave a gentle squeeze and then looked up, eyes anxious. 

“Tonight?” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale smiled, feeling a rush of fondness. “Now, if you’d like.”

“Oh.” 

Crowley stared at him for another few moments. Then, just as Aziraphale was about to ask whether the demon was going to kiss him or run away, he stepped forwards and absorbed the space in-between them. 

Suddenly, they were close - thighs brushing thighs and hands brushing sides. They were closer than they had been in the last thousand year, closer than they had been since they had begun watching one another with hunger. And Crowley’s eyes held hunger, now. Things were different, tonight, Aziraphale thought. Before, moving past this point would have been reserved for their dreams. Before, this was where ‘want’ had ended - but not tonight. 

Fingertips curling around a narrow wrist, Aziraphale pulled his friend closer until Crowley was straddling his thigh. 

Giving a long exhale, the demon's eyes darted down to his mouth.

“You want this?” There was a half a frown lurking around his brow. Hesitation.

Aziraphale nodded. 

“I want you.” 

Crowley blinked, looking away then quickly back - as if to check if Aziraphale was joking. The angel could see his breath starting to move faster, in his chest. _For him,_ he thought, with a dizzying rush of joy. Crowley’s breath was moving faster, his eyes growing darker _, for him_. The feeling of power was most agreeable.

Tilting his head back, he slid a hand up his friend’s arm, feeling the hard edges of tendon and bone beneath the demon’s clothes. 

There was nothing excess about Crowley. He could remember that from the day they’d compared their earthly forms, high on Eden’s wall. There was no spare muscle, or fat, or skin. The demon was the bare minimum a creature could be and still live. Those long legs were just strong enough to carry his own weight. The power in his back and his shoulders was just enough to pull himself over a wall, or up a tree. Even his skin was pale - as if colour had been an extravagance too much to ask. A few freckles would appear on his shoulders and his neck, though, if he spent enough time in the sun. Aziraphale remembered them from Egypt. 

“I want you,” he whispered again, and was rewarded with another little shift in Crowley’s breaths. One of the demon’s hands slipped around his back, fingers finding the dip over his spine. Glancing down, Aziraphale could see that the hairs on that arm were on end. 

_All for him. All for him._

“You want me?” Crowley asked, softly - one last request for confirmation. 

“Yes.” Embarrassment rippled through Aziraphale, enough to colour his cheeks but not nearly enough to make him stop. “And you want me?” 

“Have done for a while, now.” The demon watched him, his expression slightly veiled, his emotions even more so. “Centuries. Lots of wanting...” He tilted his head. “Never sure how much of it was reciprocated...” 

“Sorry about that.” 

“S’okay.” 

“It was,” Aziraphale admitted, blushing further. “It is. I just…”

They stared at one another for a long ten seconds, then Crowley shrugged. 

“I get it, angel. It’s complicated.” 

“It is, rather.” Aziraphale swallowed. His breaths were getting all caught up in his heartbeats. Everything was tripping over itself, getting faster, getting dizzier. “I never intended to make it more so, though,” he forced out. He felt he had to say this bit - to make it clear for Crowley. “I suppose, it all rather caught me by surprise. And then, even after I realised that we were both interested, it just always seemed like… like-,” 

“Such a bad idea?”

"Yes." 

“Mm.” Ten seconds passed in silence. Just the beating of their hearts in their own ears. Crowley’s bright eyes darted between his own, hungrily. “It’s still a really bad idea. You know that, right?” 

“I know."

"Okay."

The moment hung, suspended in the air between them. 

Then it fractured. 

In an instant, they were together - Crowley’s hands fisting in the angel’s shirt, their mouths finding one another’s without conscious thought. Noses nudged into cheeks. Skin rubbed against skin. Lips sought lips and pressed, then parted so that tongues could seek tongues. Digging his fingertips into his friend’s side, Aziraphale felt a strange electric shiver run down the back of his spine, finding its target deep in his gut. 

_This. This was what he wanted._

The familiarity of kissing Crowley was blissful. It was like sinking back into sleep, after waking up early in the morning. It was like being enveloped in warm, comforting oblivion. It wasn’t soft or sweet, like it had been in Jerusalem. There was too much build up for it to be anything less than desperate. Instead, it was hot, and heady, and perfect. Crowley felt incredibly alive against him and the angel knew what his body wanted, now - in a way he had not that first time. He knew where he wanted this to go. 

The thought was enough to draw a little groan from his throat.

“This okay?” Crowley mumbled, pressing him back against the scrubbed oak table.

“Yes…” The word came out more breathless than Aziraphale would have liked - but what was the point in pretending? “More than,” he panted, pulling his friend closer over his thigh. 

The movement pressed the growing hardness of the demon up into his belly, and Crowley hissed while Aziraphale shivered. 

_Hard for him. All for him._

“Good?” The angel asked, unable to help himself. 

“Yeah… sss’good…” Crowley’s mouth was on his neck, “insane, though… completely insane.” Despite the words, he didn't pull back. His hands fell to the back of Aziraphale’s shirt, instead, tugging it free as they continued to kiss. “We are…” he kissed the angel, “completely-,” more kissing, “fucked.”

“I know…” 

“We should stop.” Fingernails dug into Aziraphale’s thigh as Crowley pulled himself closer, grinding up into the swell of his belly. “Do you want to stop?”

“No.” 

“You sure?”

“I need this.”

“ _Uh_ -,” Crowley leant in again and they were lost in one another, pressing back into the table, searching for more contact. 

They kissed desperately, pressing closer, grinding their clothed bodies together until that became nowhere near enough. 

They helped one another claw their way out of their clothes. The demon’s shirt came first, yanked gracelessly over his head, mouths barely parting. His under-tunic followed, then the laces of his hose - a trickier task, involving a bit of swearing as a knot formed and had to be unpicked. Then, they were freed too, pushed down over Crowley’s hips until the demon was left standing in no more than cotton shorts.

He was exceptionally beautiful, half-dressed in the moonlight - all pale belly and dark nipples, marked with dark hair down the centre. His pupils were massive and Aziraphale found himself remembering the first time he had seen them like that - how all he had thought, at the time, was how well Crowley must be able to see in the dark. Back then, the angel had never felt a lover tremble beneath him. He had not known the little noises, or the taste of sweat on skin, or the way eyes dilated to show want. Physical love had been something he still regarded as very human. 

But they were both a little human now, Aziraphale thought, running an admiring thumb along the side of his friend’s belly. They were something other - he and Crowley. Angel and demon, yes, but also something else, by dint of time. Nobody sent by Heaven could ever understand all that they had seen, Aziraphale thought. Only Crowley had lived through this world alongside him. They had grown up here, together. And the angel knew what those pupils meant now, wide and wanting in the darkness.

“Where do you want to do this?” He asked his friend, softly. 

“Fuck. Anywhere.” The demon glanced around. “Do you even have a bed? You don’t sleep much.” 

“There’s a bed next door.” 

“Okay.” 

Taking Crowley's hand in his, they headed off through the dark.

.


	8. 1511 CE, Rome, III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two supernatural entities getting down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE APOLOGIES. I set this to post on Friday and never bothered checking to see that it had. So now we're running a week behind. This was never meant to be a standalone chapter, but there we go. Such is the way of life. Hope you can all forgive me. 
> 
> CW in this chapter : explicit sex. Mind the rating bump.

**1511 CE, Rome**

**Part III**

**.**

The apartment was not large. Aziraphale had never seen the need for more than two rooms - one for working and one for rest. The former was full of the memorabilia; art and trinkets picked up over his centuries of association with Rome; manuscripts rescued from various libraries; banned book that Aziraphale planned to recirculate, once sufficient years had passed. The latter was barely more than a bed.

Taking Crowley’s hand, the angel led the demon past a shelf piled with old letters and under the tapestry that hung across the lintel, separating the two rooms. Their breaths were loud and harsh in the cool night air - the moment strangely surreal. It felt like something other than Aziraphale’s mind were steering his body. His footsteps were automatic, drawing him on.

“It's not much,” he murmured, stepping over the threshold.

“It’s nice.”

It felt oddly appropriate in the moment, too, thought Aziraphale. Stripped down. Bare. Just the two of them and a bed and a small high window that showed a narrow glimpse of the rooftops of Rome. 

Taking a step forwards, Crowley let go of his hand and turned on the spot, throwing an awkward shrug.

“So, uh… how would you like me?” He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “Because, you know, I can be pretty much anything, really… Made to give the people what they want and all…” He looked down, pink cheeks deepening to scarlet.

Aziraphale got the impression it cost rather a lot for him to speak that sentence allowed - to admit to it, in the open air. Demon. Snake. Other. Shapeshifting creature not of this earth. They spent so long pretending to be human, it was jarring and oddly thrilling to say the truth out loud. Especially like this.

“I can be whatever you want me to be,” Crowley told him, eyes darting up to meet his, then shying away again.

The corner of Aziraphale’s mouth twitched towards a smile.

_Crowley._

Bashful was not a side of his friend that he often got to see. Usually, the demon was all swagger and clever remarks - not taking anything too seriously. But there were moments, the angel thought, moments when he saw Crowley as he had been all those years ago. Curious and brave, sharp and full of chaotic energy - so very good at causing mayhem but also so unexpectedly sweet.

_Brave, clever, sweet, sweet Crowley._

“Be yourself,” Aziraphale murmured. “Just as you would be if you were doing this alone.” 

Crowley stared at him for a few seconds. He looked confused - as if nobody had ever requested such a thing from him before - as if he could not imagine anyone wanting such a thing. Then, gathering himself, he gave his head a little shake and let the tension in his body relax.

He didn’t change very much. He looked, perhaps, a little older than he had earlier that evening at the party. Fine lines marked out the corners of his eyes - the echoes of past laughter. The dark tattoo against his cheekbone stood out a little more, as if he’d stopped actively trying to hide it. His eyes were all gold iris again. No pretence at being human. No pretence at being anything other than what Hell had made him. He looked almost as he had in the garden, in the beginning. Apart from the hair. The hair he’d left a bit shorter.

Knowing it was his turn to be brave, Aziraphale took a tentative few steps forwards and stood directly in front of his friend. Lifting a hand, he pressed it against the demon’s chest, feeling his heart beating rapidly beneath flesh and bone. It was such a human response. The angel wondered if it was a conscious choice, or just something Crowley had become used to after thousands of years on Earth. 

“What do you like?” Aziraphale asked, very aware of the demon’s mouth, just inches from his own. Very aware of the throbbing heat of his body. Desire was urging him to move this forwards, but there were certain logistics to be worked out first. (Not that Aziraphale minded terribly how it all played out. Contrary to popular assumption, he was fairly flexible about how and where everything went. He was a being of love, after all… and maybe just a bit of a hedonist). 

“Whatever you want.” Crowley was nervous. Aziraphale could feel the demon’s long fingers shaking slightly as they stroked over his sides. “Whatever you feel like doing, angel. I’m easy.” 

Tilting his head back, Aziraphale watched his friend, curiously. He had expected the demon to be more pushy - to be a lot more picky, like he was elsewhere in the world. If Aziraphale was a hedonist, then Crowley was a connoisseur. The demon had a narrow range of things he liked and he indulged in them in a very precise manner. Aziraphale suspected that his friend had specific preferences for sex every bit as much as he had for wine, and cigars, and expensive clothes. He suspected, too, that Crowley was holding back in order to please him. And that was, perhaps, the only stipulation for a hedonist. He had to know his lover was having an equally good time.

“Crowley?”

The demon stilled, breath warm on the side of his neck.

“What? This not okay?” 

“It is. This is-,” Aziraphale felt an absurd desire to laugh. In all truth, ’this’ was insanity. ‘This’ was probably going to the be the end of them. But it was probably also the best thing he had done since lifting a wing over a demon’s head, on the eastern wall of Eden. “You are perfect.”

Crowley visibly squirmed.

“Flattery...” He looked pleased, though. Pleased and fighting for composure.

Aziraphale eyed him.

“It’s not.”

“It bloody well is.”

“Okay, have it your way…”

The angel slipped his thumb forwards, finding the warm shallow of the demon’s hip. Crowley’s skin there was smooth. Almost unbearably soft.

Crowley gave a little noise that was almost a sigh.

Swallowing, Aziraphale tightened his fingertips and he made a snap decision - based on everything he’d ever experienced about sex and everything he’d ever guessed about Crowley.

“I was just thinking that, if you don’t have a preference and it's something you enjoy, that I’d like to be inside you.” 

Crowley stared for three seconds. Then his face split into a wide grin, nerves seeming to fall away. 

He let out a low, delighted laugh.

“Well, alright.” Leaning in, he kissed Aziraphale firmly on the mouth, then stepped away. Taking one, two, three steps back, he reached the end of the bed and sat down upon it, his trademark smirk back in place, his eyes hooked on Aziraphale’s. “Come here.”

Opening a hand, he beckoned the angel to stand between his knees - so Aziraphale did. Eyes fixed on Crowley’s gold, he stood very still, watching as his friend traced fingers up the outside of his thighs and then around to the front of his hose, pressing against his cock through the cotton. He felt blood rush through him, in response. 

_Oh, this was more than good. They were more than fucked. Heaven might as well throw him into the boiling pits of sulphur now. He was done for..._

“You want these off?” Long fingers were sliding up, brushing the laces holding his waistband together. 

_YES_.

“Yes.” 

“All the way, or-,”

“All the way.” If they were doing this, they were doing it properly. 

Spurred on by the growing tension, the angel pulled his shirt free over his head and turned to his hose, where Crowley’s fingers were already at work. The pair of them laughed as the laces tangled. Then again as Crowley worked the resultant knot free. Then they stopped laughing as Crowley began to slip the fabric down his legs with surprising temperance, trailing kisses as he went. 

“There,” 

Crowley’s mouth, hot and damp against his hip. 

Against his thigh. 

Against the inside of his knee. 

Clothing abandoned on the floor, Aziraphale stood nervously as the demon sat back up, trying to keep his hands from fidgeting awkwardly at his sides. Crowley’s gaze felt very heavy, all of a sudden - the vulnerability of the position heightened by its newness. 

Forcing himself not to say something self-deprecating, Aziraphale watched the demons eyes travel over him, blatantly appraising, before lifting to meet his gaze. 

“You always were too pretty for this place, angel.”

The statement might have sounded teasing had it not been laced with such exquisite want. 

Aziraphale flushed anyway. 

“Now who’s flattering…”

The demon grinned wider. 

“Makes me remember all those bathhouses. All those years of togas and robes… You getting your legs out, sitting on the ground, eating with your hands…” He leant forwards, chin tilting back. His warm thumbs were pressed into the outside of Aziraphale’s thighs, rubbing gentle circles, possessive. “I barely survived all of that, you know.”

“You are so dramatic,” Aziraphale breathed.

“Mm. Touch me.” 

And there was that pushy, demanding side that Aziraphale had expected…

Unable to deny his friend, Aziraphale lifted hands to the demon's head. Burying his fingertips into soft copper waves, he pushed back along the scalp, feeling the warmth of it, the silk of his hair parting easily.

“Fuck…”

A rush of pleasure ran up the front of his spine.

Crowley liked that. He now lived in a world where he knew that Crowley liked that. Liked having his head stroked from temple to crown, just hard enough to jerk his head a little - not quite a tug but close.

Breathing a little unsteadily, Aziraphale performed the same action three more times, then turned his hands to stroke further down. Along the sides of his skull. Over the tops of ears that were still a little red. Then over the sharp rise of cheekbones, along the strong line of his jaw, down the column of his neck.

As he rested one finger over the hard cartilage of the demon’s throat, Crowley gazed up at him, smile still playing around his lips. They hung there, on the moment, just watching one another. Then, giving a little chuckle, the demon let himself fall away from Aziraphale - falling back on the bed, propped up on his elbows. 

“Undress me.” 

Obediently, Aziraphale knelt, feeling the dynamic shift between them. Gathering the waistband of the demon’s cotton undergarments, he slid them down, revealing long, slender thighs, a flash of dark red hair, and a decent amount of very erect cock which he tried desperately not to stare at.

Crowley lifted each leg in turn, allowing him to free the fabric from his body, but otherwise stayed very still, watching with abject fascination, lips parted and pupils wide. Aziraphale held his silence, too - until he reached the point where he was tugging the fabric free over the demon’s feet. Then, glancing down, he saw that the soles of them were muddy and scratched.

“Did you walk here without shoes?” He asked, incredulously. 

Crowley blinked, then rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, yes…” he waved a hand, clearly annoyed at being distracted midway through his fantasy of being slowly undressed. “I was being all distraught and overdramatic.” 

“Just a little.” 

“I’m an idiot,” he grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. “We’ve been over this.” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale could not help but smile. Fondness poured through him, kneeling in front of his ridiculous, very naked demon. Hot, liquid love. “I suppose we have.” 

Rolling his eyes again, Crowley clicked his fingers and his feet became immediately clean. The clothes disappeared, too. 

The little motion made the angel wonder why they had bothered with pulling things off by hand - before he remembered that this was just the way they’d always done this. Neither of them had ever been with anyone other than a human. They had never been able to be honest about what they were, before.

It made him wonder…

“Crowley, do you think we could, you know-,” he blushed a bit at the thought of the request - then a bit more, at the sight of the demon, naked and waiting expectantly. “…wings?”

Crowley raised one eyebrow.

“What about wings?”

“I mean,” Aziraphale’s blush deepened. “We could have them out here, if we wanted. No one would see.” 

The smug little look on the demon’s face vanished, drowned in an ocean of need. Slowly, he pushed himself up, off his elbows, and reached out to wrap his hands around the angel's hips. The movements were so precise, so careful, that Aziraphale shivered. Then he shivered a bit more as Crowley tilted his head to stare up at him - throat very pale, eyes very dark.

“You might actually be the death of me, angel,” he whispered. “Go on, then. Get them out.” 

Aziraphale folded his wings back into an Earthly dimension and the demon did as well - both feeling a little shiver of completion that neither had been expecting. This was them, Aziraphale thought, just as they had been in the beginning. Or, close to the beginning, anyways. (Aziraphale didn’t know which of his friend’s forms he had actually been sent up in. They had only met on Crowley's last day in the garden). But, either way, it felt right to be exposed to one another like this. 

Crowley seemed to think so too because, as they stretched into the Earthly manifestations of their celestial forms, things ramped up a notch.

Fingernails tightening against his skin, Aziraphale was tugged down into the bedsheets and suddenly there wasn’t room for thinking anymore. They were pressed up against one another, all soft flesh and sharp angles, the warm press of their mouths drawing noises from the back of both their throats. They were wrapped tightly around one another, Crowley’s leg hooked over the back of his thigh, Crowley’s fingers fisting into his hair, one dark wing curling around to block out the moonlight streaming in through the window.

The world beyond their little room was strangely distant. Nothing seemed to matter, aside from the little noises they could draw from one another’s mouths. They were dizzy on the shared scent of their skin, lost in the sensation of their human-shaped bodies, pressed hard and eager against one another. 

Their latent strength made the experience very different to any sex they had shared with humans in the past. There was an inherent vulnerability in letting a creature that could destroy you wrap his fingers halfway around your neck. There was an inherent power in pressing him down, into the mattress, so that he could not even lift his hips. There was an illicit thrill in knowing they were both there out of mutual trust. By the time Aziraphale reached a hand down, between their bellies, they were already slick with desire. 

“How do you want to do this?” He panted, pulling fingertips over the length of Crowley’s cock - once, and then twice, and then slowly and repeatedly until his friend dropped his head back to the bed with a groan. “We can stay like this. Or you can roll over? Or I can lift you, if you like? I think I’m strong enough.” He felt dizzy, drunk - though the alcohol must have cleared from his system hours ago. “Which would you prefer?” 

Crowley made a wonderful little noise - something between a laugh and sound of a demon coming completely undone. Then he placed a hand in the middle of Aziraphale’s chest and pushed him away - just far enough to wriggle a hip and a wing over and lie himself on his belly. 

“I like… uh, this way? Just let me-," he started to reach a hand behind him, but Aziraphale stayed his wrist. 

"I can do that.”

“Yeah… Yeah, okay." Crowley, looking surprised and shy and eager, let his hand fall back to the sheets and breathed a little faster. 

Tucking one hand into the crease of his friend’s thigh, Aziraphale leant over him and placed a kiss against the back of his neck. Then, he flattened out his other hand and drew oil from the firmament. It was only a small miracle, he thought as he tilted his palm, letting the liquid spread over it, stealing his warmth. He’d have to remember to buy some, if they did this again. (When they did this again). It wouldn’t do to leave a record of what they got up to. 

Sliding his hand between Crowley’s legs, the reality of the situation hit Aziraphale in waves. He was pressed up against his counterpart, his adversary. That, in itself, was was new and exhilarating, but there was something about this act that felt additionally binding. Perhaps it was the deliberate nature of it. The intention. This was something he had never shared with Crowley before. An act of care.

Below him, Crowley's breaths shortened into soft, panting noises. Aziraphale could feel the demon's heart drumming away, through the back of his ribs. Dipping his head forwards, he kissed Crowley over the spot, feeling him shudder - then feeling him exhale as his fingertips found their mark. 

“Fuck, angel-,”

Sweat was beginning to bead across the demon’s shoulders and down the back of his neck. His muscles were visibly trembling.

Aziraphale more than understood. Hearing ‘angel’ uttered alongside a little exclamation of want was doing strange things to his own body.

Reaching further between his friend’s legs, he gave a gentle press behind his balls, then retreated back to the crease of his ass. Forwards and then back again, interspersing the movements with gentle circles over his entrance, until Crowley was pressing back against him, sliding a leg out to invite him further. At the back of his mind, Aziraphale remembered how they had traced one another’s bodies, back in the garden, and how different that had been. Touch in Eden had been innocent, childlike exploration. There had been no implication behind it. Not like this.

Below him, Crowley’s breath was coming in little rushes. Then, Aziraphale was pressing gently past the resistance of his friend’s body and the little rushes were becoming little sighs, and Aziraphale had to grip onto the sheets to steady himself. Tension pulled at the base of his spine - a foreshadowing of pleasure. 

There was no logical reason why this act should be so intimate - so maddeningly, intensely arousing - but it was. He was inside Crowley and, suddenly, the demon was all that existed. The world had shrunk to the feel of smooth skin and the slick heat of him, the way the demon’s body yielded and pulled him deeper. It should be no different to touching any other part of his body, but it was. It was different. He had never known Crowley like this. It was a collision of two very separate parts of his life.

Desire swelled painfully inside of the angel, pulling at his flesh. 

“Like this?” He asked, keeping his movements slow, steady. 

“Yeah…” 

“Okay.”

He stroked forwards, then smoothly back. Almost out, then in again. 

Crowley let out a low whine.

“More?” 

“Yeah.” 

He withdrew. Slowly added another finger. Slid and stroked and stroked. 

“Angel…” 

Need was emanating from Crowley like something physical. It was as if their mutual desire was bridging the gaps between their bodies. The wall that the demon usually held up, to hide his emotions, was more firmly in place than ever but - perhaps as a by-product of that - he was broadcasting physical sensation more powerfully than Aziraphale had ever felt. 

Leaning against the demon’s back, the angel could almost taste the salt from the back of Crowley’s arm - where his friend’s mouth lay. He could almost feel the pressure Crowley was feeling in his abdomen, sending shockwaves up his spine. They were just energy, he thought, as the demon whimpered for more and he gently crooked his fingers inside of him. They were just energy wrapped in starstuff. 

“Nnng,” Crowley twisted slightly, arm disappearing beneath himself. Aziraphale saw the muscles of his shoulders flex, wings curling downwards as he palmed himself against his belly. 

“This okay?” 

“Nn’yeah… more than.” His friend sounded dazed, drunk, desperate. “I’d be, uh, good if you want to.” His head tilted and Aziraphale saw a sliver of profile. Not quite a full look back - perhaps Crowley couldn’t face that - but an offer of reassurance nonetheless. 

“You sure?” He asked anyway.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to hurt-,”

“Aziraphale…” Crowley gave a breathless half laugh, turning his face to rest on the blankets. “Don’t make me beg.” 

“Okay.”

Withdrawing his hand, the angel stroked a fresh palmful of oil across his skin. Then he was leaning over Crowley, pressing the blunt end of his cock against him and breathing harshly out at the pressure of it - at the heat and smoothness of Crowley’s skin. At the slow yield. Then the sink.

“Oh, Crowley…” 

The movement would have been too fast for him, had he been on the receiving end, but when Aziraphale murmured Crowley’s name in inquiry, the demon just breathed out and slid a hand back to grip onto his thigh, locking them together.

“S’okay. S’good…”

Around them, the magic in the air seemed to shift.

Aziraphale felt the distance between them - the metaphysical space between their souls - begin to flex. It was a bit like two bodies of water mixing. He could feel parts of his own awareness rush around Crowley. He could feel the sharp taste of Crowley’s magic in his throat, the tingle of it in his veins. And he could _feel_ the demon. He could feel him feel.

They lay, belly to back, panting roughly. 

“Fuck.” Crowley whispered again. Only this time, Aziraphale felt him say it - felt the breath leave Crowley's lips as if they were his own. 

Sensation was suddenly feeding both ways. Aziraphale could feel the stinging stretch of himself inside the demon right alongside the heat of Crowley stretched around him. He could feel sweat prickling across Crowley’s skin. He could even feel both their heartbeats, drumming in tandem. It was terrifying but completely exhilarating and, though surprised, neither tried to pull away.

“Is this you?”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale swallowed. “It’s never happened before. You?”

“Definitely not.”

“Must be an _us_ thing.”

“Yeah. Weird…” Crowley arched against him, the heady pressure change causing them both to exhale. “Fuck,” the demon breathed. “It’s good. Don’t stop.”

Aziraphale was fairly sure he couldn’t stop if he tried. 

Wrapping his forearm underneath his best friend’s belly, he drew back slightly then pressed forward and both of them groaned, driven up against the edge of abandon in complete synchrony. It was dizzying. It was probably going to overwhelm them at any moment but it was good. It was so good. This must be what their bodies were meant for, Aziraphale thought, shakily. To share.

Tilting his head, Crowley threw a half-grin back at him. Aziraphale could see the pink curl of his lip, the flash of a pointed canine tooth, the dark lashes fringing those brilliant golden eyes. 

“Go on. Give me more, angel.”

The request was soft, and needy, and honest. So Aziraphale pressed his hand into the bed beneath them, and drew his hips back, and gave him more. 

“Like that?” 

“Uh-,” 

“More?”

“Nn’yeah…”

If the angel had been asked, before that night, to predict how he and Crowley would first come together, he would have put a lot of money on them being frantic, desperate, and loud. As it turned out, however, only one of these things was true. 

In the wake of their strange connection, they moved slowly, not frantically - at least not at first. Shared input filling their senses, they increased their pace cautiously, finding a balance, finding a place where neither of them felt too close to the edge of control. 

They were not desperate, either. Tangled up in one another, there was no need for desperation. There was a feeling of incredible safety, kneeling there, Crowley’s long fingers around his wrist and the pad of the demon’s foot braced against his ankle. The experience was new, and incredible, and insane, but it also felt natural. It felt like an extension of everything they had shared these past six thousand years. It just felt like ‘them’ - just like their shared looks and jokes were ‘them’ - just like how Crowley bought him presents and Aziraphale wrote the demon letters was ‘them’. Another thing to share, away from the greater arc of duty, and history, and destiny. 

They were loud, though. 

Aziraphale tried to keep them quiet, at first, (dimly aware that there were other people sharing the building), but Crowley was incorrigible and the more the demon whimpered and groaned, the more whimpers fell from his own lips. Eventually, he gave up and threw a hasty shield up around the room, causing Crowley to laugh and push back against him. 

“Frivolous.” He grinned as Aziraphale knelt against the back of his thighs. “Frivolous, frivolous, frivolous-,” each word uttered on the exhale - a litany for his lover.

Breathing hard, the angel squeezed his hip, anchoring himself on that hard edge of bone. His mind was reeling with the simultaneous sensation of penetrating and penetration. The power of controlling both was intoxicating. He slowed and quickened, and Crowley panted underneath him - laughter vanishing as the pace sped up. 

“Fuck, Aziraphale.” 

Dropping one shoulder to the bed, the demon’s hand disappeared beneath him. The angel could feel it as he wrapped fingers around his cock, almost too tightly, distracting from the pre-climactic tension. It was still enough to send an anticipatory rush of pleasure up his own spine. 

He was close. Very close. And the silly, sentimental part of him, (the part of him which was secretly very in love with Crowley), wanted to look the demon in the eyes as they did this. 

He stilled their movements.

“Would you like to turn over?” 

It was a leading question, really. 

Stroking the side of Crowley’s belly, he waited for the demon to lift his face off the sheets and reengage his brain.

“Nnngh’yeah… yeah…” his friend looked back at him for a long few seconds, then licked his lip and wriggled forwards, giving a disgruntled noise as their bodies parted. The shared sensation of emptiness made Aziraphale wince but seeing Crowley rolling over to look up at him softened the blow. He was beautiful. Pale and red and gold, he was hellfire made human, but his eyes held only adoration. “Anything you want, angel.” 

“Anything?” 

His wings spread out behind him - a backdrop of oiled obsidian. He was so beautiful. Looking down upon him, Aziraphale was suddenly less sure he was going to be able to handle all of this. He wanted to sink himself into Crowley and just stay there, forever. Fuck the end of the world. Fuck destiny and duty. 

“Anything,” Crowley said, looking up at him, eyes wide and gold and honest. “You can have anything you want.” 

Reaching out, Aziraphale ran his hands down the outside of his friend’s thighs and then crawled in between them. 

“Just you,” he murmured.

Below him, Crowley’s lips parted slightly.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

They stared at one another. Then the demon lifted a leg and the angel leant forwards, and they were together - far more quickly than the first time. 

_Fuck._

There was something surprisingly tender about the position - one of Crowley’s legs wrapped around his ribs and the other slung over his shoulder. It was quite a bit more intense than lying belly to back. They could make eye contact, for one thing. Crowley could look up and see him, framed in white wings. The angel could look down and see his friend’s lip curl back, in time with his thrusts. He could see Crowley flashing pointed canine teeth as he panted his name.

“Oh fuck, angel… _angel, angel, angel._ ” 

_He was beautiful. So beautiful._

Leaning over him, Aziraphale could see the rhythmic contractions of the demon’s abdomen, the shadows of his ribs flickering. He could see Crowley’s hand hovering over his cock, squeezing himself every few thrusts. He could reach in between them and take over the movement, instead. 

He could take Crowley in hand, feeling the slide of silken skin over swollen flesh. He could establish a steady rhythm, matching the movements of his hips - drawing moans out of his friend until Crowley’s mouth stayed open in a perfect, pink circle and they were far too far gone to turn back. 

“Oh shit… oh shit... shitshitshit-!” 

They reached the edge both too soon and not soon enough. 

Holding his hand steady, Aziraphale let his friend thrust up into it - back curved, abdomen tight. He accepted the ragged rhythm, the frenzied mixing of their breaths. Then Crowley came so hard it blocked out sound and the angel followed suit - falling helplessly, willingly into oblivion. 

Everything blurred. 

Colour. Sensation. Souls. 

Twenty seconds passed. (Or twenty minutes. Or twenty hours, Aziraphale couldn’t be sure). Then they ground to a shuddering halt against one another, panting. 

Reality took a while to filter back in. For a moment, all the angel could focus on was the aftershocks of electricity passing up his spine and the faint tingling in his thighs. All he could hear was the sound of his heart, beating away in his ears, and the rough panting of his lover beneath him. Then, slowly, the rest began to return. 

His first conscious thought was that Crowley had not been lying about being extremely flexible. In his post-coital stupor, Aziraphale had slumped forwards over him and the demon's legs had just folded obligingly back to accommodate him. His thighs were wrapped around Aziraphale’s ribs, heels digging into his back, holding their bodies together. It was really rather impressive. And strangely comforting, Aziraphale thought, to be held by someone - surrounded and buried in them.

Giving a deep sigh, Aziraphale hung his head lower. His scalp was singing under Crowley’s ministrations. The demon was stroking long fingertips over him, working efficiently from crown to neck, pressing just hard enough to draw shivers. 

“That feels amazing,” he eventually mumbled, mouth barely cooperating with his mind. “You feel amazing.” 

Crowley laughed; a warm, easy noise that vibrated up through his rib cage. He scratched the tips of his fingers a little harder. 

“Thanksss.” 

“Thank _you_ …”

Another laugh. Another hiss. 

With a concerted effort, Aziraphale levered himself up to meet his friend’s eyes. 

Crowley looked charmingly fucked. His lips were red, his hair damp and tangled. His skin was coated with a sheen of sweat and the evidence of his earlier pleasure - a series of small pools and droplets across his belly. He was still breathing heavily. As his eyes swept Aziraphale, the angel saw his mouth curl into a playful smirk. 

He probably looked no less debauched, Aziraphale thought, blushing slightly. There were curls forming in the sweat from his forehead. He couldn’t quite get his heart rate to return to normal. 

“That was…” he stared, breathless, into the demon’s eyes. 

“Good?” 

“Yes.” ‘Good’ was an enormous understatement, but Aziraphale didn’t have anything more to offer. His brain was struggling to handle monosyllables. “Rather.”

“Mm. Apologies about the abrupt ending,” Crowley picked a piece of lint from his tongue, not looking remotely apologetic. “Got a bit carried away.” 

“Nnh.” Aziraphale gave a little noise and wiggle of his head - which he hoped conveyed that the whole experience had been completely fantastic and all of Heaven and Hell couldn’t have stopped him when the demon finished, anyway. 

Crowley seemed to understand. He gave another little laugh and slid his hands down to wrap around the angel’s forearms. He was shaking slightly, Aziraphale realised, as the demon’s fingers encircled him. How long had it been since sex had made him shake? Closing his eyes, he swallowed, trying again to regulate his heartbeat. He didn’t think sex had ever made him shake, before. 

“Hey,” 

Long thumbs pressed into the hollow of his wrists. Aziraphale opened his eyes to find Crowley watching him, warmly. 

“You okay?”

Aziraphale considered lying and answering ‘yes’ but, in retrospect, he was glad he never got the words out. The alternative turned out to be the demon gently extracting himself and kneeling up to straddle Aziraphale, wrapping long arms around his neck while the last heartbeats of adrenaline rode through both of them. 

It was lovely - just clinging onto someone. It was a wonderful, needy thing that Aziraphale had never let himself do before. Some of the humans had been up for a bit of affection, of course, but it had always felt disingenuous - what with them not knowing who or what he was. This was different. No holds barred. Feeling intensely known. His hereditary enemy pressed stickily against his chest, face buried in his shoulder, making a complete mess of his right thigh. It was all very comforting. 

Eventually, they did move, but only to flop down in their sheets, tangled in one another, talking the most pointless nonsense they’d ever talked. If Aziraphale had been expecting awkwardness it would have been a false assumption. There were a few shy moments. One as the demon had offered over a cloth to clean them both up - another as he wandered through to the next room for a drink of water, and Aziraphale held his breath in case he didn’t come back. But, really, it felt no different to any of the evenings they had spent draped over sofas in their respective residences, sharing a drink and chatting about the world. 

There was a bit more touching. The first time, Crowley hesitated - pulling his fingers back from where they were tracing Aziraphale’s navel, to check that it was still okay - but the angel just mumbled some nonsense about them technically still being in bed and it all being above board. And Crowley smiled and turned the conversation back to migratory birds, continuing to map his body with exploratory fingertips. 

They kept their wings out and folded around them, draped over the bed, and Crowley’s gentle exploration eventually took him to the angel’s. Face full of concentration, he ran his fingers through the ruffled bits, sorting bent feathers and gently picking out old down. He had a way of working his finger pads so that everything just came out smooth, and it was every bit as comforting as the feeling of his fingers moving through Aziraphale’s hair had been. 

As conversation began to lull, the angel found himself drifting off to it. Crowley did not appear to mind. He just let Aziraphale rest a wing on his chest and continued to work, fingers smoothing the fine white fibres over one another, working free the occasional bit of lint, or strand of thread. 

He stayed quiet, right up until the angel was slipping into unconsciousness. Then he mumbled, so quietly that Aziraphale almost didn’t hear;

“Don’t fuck off before I wake up tomorrow, all right?” Eyes focussed very determinedly on Aziraphale’s left wing, the demon swallowed slightly.

Shifting his face against the bedsheet, Aziraphale looked up at him. 

“I won’t.”

“Can be one of our ground rules,” Crowley suggested, giving a little shrug and half a pout. “No leaving before the other one’s awake.”

“Deal.” 

The angel slid a hand up to playfully shake his friend’s. He only managed to get hold of some fingertips but the movement made the demon smile anyway, and made the shyness around his eyes fade back a little. A quiet half minute passed, while Crowley turned back to his preening, then Aziraphale felt obliged to say something. 

“I’m very sorry about running off on you that morning, dear boy,” he murmured. Crowley faltered, then continued to pick through the feathers, belly tautening slightly against Aziraphale’s side. “There was a lot going on at the time,” the angel continued. “I didn’t think you’d want me around.” 

“I asked you to stay, didn’t I?” Crowley’s eventual answer was quiet, but not standoffish. If anything, he just sounded a little sad. 

“I know, but-,” Aziraphale shifted around so he could look at his friend properly. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you meant it.” 

The demon watched him carefully for a long few moments, then wrinkled his nose and turned his attention back to the feathers. 

“As a general rule,” he said, with the lightness that always belayed his most tender statements, “by the time something gets all the way from my fucked up brain to my lips, past all the doubting shite in between, I mean it pretty well… moments of anger notwithstanding.” 

“Noted.”

The angel moved his hand inward to press against his friend’s side. Giving him a little squeeze, he tilted his head back into the pillow and gave a very satisfied sigh. 

They fell asleep next to one another and were both still there when they woke up. 

.


	9. 1690 CE, Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A three hundred and thirty nine year affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: passing mentions of period-typical homophobia, Crowley smoking a joint, and Aziraphale having brainwashed views on what demons can feel. 
> 
> More than a passing mention of Aziraphale healing a burn. (Starts at "...the glow revealed Crowley clutching at his right arm," and ends at "Letting out a strained gasp" if you're wanting to avoid it).

**1690 CE, Paris**

.

One hundred and seventy nine years were swallowed up in an instant - some of the fastest and best years of Aziraphale’s life. The years yielded surprises beyond the most outlandish predictions that Crowley had made, during any of their drinking sessions; beauty, horror and wonder in equal measure. 

Having been returned permanently to London in the first half of the sixteenth century, the angel watched England’s new King rise to power, and start war with the church. He watched as sects of the church turned against one another, and the humans set to burning one another with renewed vigour. Elsewhere in the world, the great empires of Islam traded gunpowder around the globe and Spain and Portugal sent ships to start colonies on distant shores, all in the name of civilisation. (War travelled with them, as she always did). 

In Europe, Copernicus promoted the idea that the Earth might not be the centre of the universe at all, and Brahe measured the celestial spheres of the planets. As the century reached its halfway point, the angel returned to England to see a new queen crowned, and watch Crowley cavorting around the royal court for a few years, causing untold envy amongst her ladies (and a number of the gentlemen, as well). He watched as the country bloomed, then watched as the century turned and the world bloomed as well. 

Years passed and the Ottoman empire continued to stretch around the Mediterranean, while the trading power of the world nestled south of the Himalaya. The angel left England in the third decade of the seventeenth century to travel through it all, once more; learning from the masters of miniaturist painting in Turkey, and the masters of illuminations, further south. He travelled back to France, mid century, to see the Sun King build his palace and to walk its shimmering mirrored hallways. 

Crowley joined him there, for a time. 

The demon was made for Versailles. Painted and dripping with jewels, he fit right in amongst the aristocracy. It was all Aziraphale could do not to laugh, sometimes, at the revelry of it. Crowley was a beautiful thing to witness in his element; cheating at cards, smoking and carousing, spinning first a young noblewoman around the dance floor and then, later, her brother. He looked so free among the humans, so full of life. And afterwards, always, he’d come back to the angel. 

As the world discovered calculus, gravity, and the laws of motion, Aziraphale left France for Japan where he spent a darker decade, witnessing the struggles of a minority against religious persecution. He met a young family and stayed with them for six years, before seeing them cruelly taken from the world. Saddened, he returned to England to learn that two of his favourite authors had passed away. 

It was a hard time. He wrote a letter to Crowley about it and was surprised to find the demon on his doorstep, just a few weeks later, small bag of belongings slung over his shoulder and a waft of French perfume still clinging to his coat. 

“Not much going on, on the continent,” the demon said, to excuse his arrival, pushing his way into the angel’s small, Greenwich apartment. “And I think all that nonsense with the gunpowder and that Fawkes chap has blown over, now, if you’ll pardon the pun. Probably safe for me to be back in the country again.” 

He made no real effort to hide the fact that he was there for the angel and it was the first time that they stayed together for any length of time. He spent nearly a week camped out in the angel’s rooms, not leaving apart from to fetch them sustenance early in the mornings when Aziraphale was still asleep. That was the rule, after all - the rule they had come up with the first night they spent together. If one of them was still in bed, the night had not ended. (Often, they could make a night last for days).

.

The rules had been something they agreed upon that first morning in Rome. 

It had been a strange experience, waking up tangled in one another - a little awkward, at first, but not in that horrible way that awkward could have been with someone else. They knew one another far too well for it to be properly uncomfortable. There had been too many little smiles as they caught one another staring, and too much laughter at how their hair stuck up from sleep and how their yawns fed off one another’s yawns. It had been soft and a little sweet and, after the first few minutes, things had settled back to normal. A new normal, perhaps, but one not so very different to what they’d had before. 

Crowley had brewed coffee and Aziraphale had brought forth a basket of berries and the pair of them had eaten and drank in companionable silence, watching the sun pull itself up over the horizon to paint Rome’s rooftops gold. Wrapped in their sheets, they agreed to terms for their arrangement (not capitalised, like their work Arrangement, because it was still so new and neither wanted to jinx it by giving it a name). 

The three ground rules Aziraphale had stated the night before were agreed upon first. 

One, that they would keep it separate from work. 

Two, that they would never meet where either of them was living. 

And three, that they would not meet up any more than they already did. 

To these rules, they added the demon’s request of the previous night - that they wake one another before they leave in the morning - and sex became part of what they did. 

They had lazed around the small apartment that morning, talking and eating their way through the angel’s supply of raspberries, until Aziraphale finally admitted that he had somewhere to be at noon and they would have to get up. At this point, it occurred to them that they hadn’t really agreed on how firm they were going to be regarding where and when they were allowed to explore one another, physically. 

In public and out was fairly simple to iron out. There were strict societal rules about what two men could do together with their bodies, and there was no point in inciting extra attention by visibly breaking those rules. Even if they weren't men. Even if the rules were - to use Crowley’s words - a flaming pile of repressive shite. It just wasn't worth the harassment. So, they decided to keep it all behind closed doors. 

Ever the pragmatist, Crowley told Aziraphale that they should just figure out the rest as they went along. He offered not to sleep over, in the future, if that would help Aziraphale keep it all straight in his mind. (Though this idea was void from the get-go, for Aziraphale, because the experience of lazing around all morning with Crowley was topped only by the pleasure of watching the demon fall asleep, the night before. If their agreement was about physical comfort, he argued, it made sense there should be sleeping involved). 

In the end then, they decided to stick to what Aziraphale had said, rather flippantly, the previous night. So long as one of them was still abed and they hadn’t explicitly said their goodbyes, they were good to go. The moment either of those conditions were met, they should revert to an appropriate distance to avoid confusing things. 

Like almost every other rule, they broke this one in many different ways, over time. Such was the way of new relationships. Everyone wanted to believe they were capable of more restraint than they actually were. 

.

They broke the first of their rules that very same year. 

They shared three nights together in Rome before the angel returned to England, and then they didn’t see one another again for eight months. They had intended to go much longer - as was their usual fashion - but Crowley had dropped a letter to say that he was passing through on his way to York, and it had seemed a waste not to catch up. It had been a busy year, after all, and Aziraphale could think of a blessing up in Doncaster that the demon could attend to while he was in the area. So, they had arranged to meet in a market square, near one of their favourite wine merchants, to discuss the matter and perhaps grab some lunch.

Aziraphale had been a little anxious that something might have changed between them, but he needn’t have worried. There was a bit of a moment when they said ‘hello’, where Crowley held a handshake slightly too long, but old habits quickly reasserted themselves. 

Striking up a conversation about the demon’s duties, the pair had wandered off through the city, blending in amongst the crowds, walking just far enough away to be construed as coincidental, but just close enough to hear one another speak. The angel had relayed the prospects Heaven had sent him and the demon countered with those Hell wanted seeing-to in London. Then they discussed which would be best conducted by whom based on geography and specialisms. 

They walked until sundown. Then Crowley suggested drinks so they wandered down to a place on the water where the city air wasn’t too stale and shared a bottle of red. Then the idea of dinner was floated so they wandered back along the embankment to the inn, where the demon had rooms, and shared a game pie. 

Talk had turned to laughter, and then to teasing, and Crowley’s eyes had grown increasingly dark until the angel eventually caved and suggested they go upstairs to sample some of the wine he had brought over from the continent. Giving a little dip of the head, the demon had agreed and the pair had wandered up, past the curious barman, tapping the door to seal it behind them. 

There was a minute, after they’d entered the rooms, when Aziraphale had not been sure that his friend had properly read his intentions. Crowley had left him standing by the door while he paced around, shrugging off his cloak, and making his way over to an impressive collection of bottles, making a show of searching for an appropriate vintage. He had even started to read some of the names aloud, from the rack, voicing his opinions and asking what sort of thing Aziraphale was in the mood for. 

Then, as he glanced back over his shoulder, Aziraphale had seen the tease in his eyes and the sight of it had warmed him through. 

Before he knew what he was doing, he closed the gap between them. Throwing restraint to the winds, he grabbed his friend’s hips and steered them back against one of the inn’s finely carved cabinets. And Crowley had laughed, the noise loud and delighted, sliding his arms around the angel’s neck and kissing him, and the night had fallen away from there. 

They had kissed up against the wall of the demon’s private rooms, then all the way down the narrow corridor to his bed, then atop his unnecessarily luxurious sheets. Stripping themselves of clothing, the outside world had ceased to exist. Pushed up against one another, they had touched greedily, not bothering with finesse because skin contact was all they wanted. They touched with mouths, and skin, and hands, and - oh, in the name of everything, Aziraphale had thought - if he were only allowed one feeling, until the end of eternity, he would choose it to be Crowley’s hands on him, against him, sliding down his belly to wrap around the pair of them. Palm oiled. Grip tight. 

Head thrown back against the demon’s ludicrously soft pillows, he had climaxed first and then had the dizzying experience of coming back down while watching his friend finish, twenty seconds later.

Faint sounds of London drifted in through the half open window as they caught their breath. The angel stroked the outside of Crowley’s long thighs and watched him, mesmerised by the micro expressions that flitted across the demon’s face as he returned to reality: the little frowns and sighs, the soft crease of his forehead, the faint smile tugging at his parted lips. 

Eventually, Crowley gathered himself and propped himself up. Pulling a warm, damp cloth from nowhere, he wiped his hand clean and then offered it out.

“You’re a mess.” 

“You had gravity on your side,” Aziraphale retorted. 

The words earned him a grin and, a few moments later, a warm demon pressed against his shoulder. 

“Well, I don’t usually,” Crowley yawned, wriggling down among the sheets. “So, I’m probably due a break.” He offered a share of the blanket and the angel took it, pulling himself underneath as he dropped the cloth they’d been using over the side of the bed, (where, doubtless, he would stand on it later and cringe). “You staying?” Crowley asked, a little shy for first time that night. 

Aziraphale sighed. He shouldn’t, really. There were things he needed to do in town before heading over to Canterbury. Then again, all the businessmen he needed to talk to were gone home for the day, by now. There was not much good he could be doing out in the city tonight. And he hadn’t slept in weeks. His body could do with a rest. Not that he supposed rest was Crowley’s primary intention. 

“Yes,” he answered, carefully. “If that’s all right?” 

“Very.” The demon reached an arm up and gave a languid stretch, never taking his eyes off Aziraphale’s face. 

His gaze was proprietary, the angel thought. The sight would have made him restless in public, but they were not in public, Aziraphale reassured himself. These were private rooms. Crowley’s rooms. The demon had laid protective wards around them. He was only here for three days before travelling north, to attend to his duties, and then he would be returning to his official lodgings in Paris. Aziraphale’s own base was on the other side of city. Nobody had any reason to suspect them here, tonight, and neither of them had made any noticeable withdrawals of magic. 

The thought of the cloth they had just cleaned themselves with stirred in his mind. 

“No miracles next time,” he cautioned Crowley, who arched an eyebrow. 

“No miracles?”

“Your trick with the cloth. I know it wasn’t much, but it’s best not to take risks. One less thing to draw attention.” 

The demon shrugged.

“Okay, no miracles.” He eyed Aziraphale thoughtfully for a moment and then added, “fair warning, though, if you don’t remember to bring oil, you don’t get to play. Hard limit, that one. I’m not a martyr.” 

Aziraphale felt a smile pull at his lips, even as his cheeks flushed crimson. Beside him, Crowley was smirking in that way he had - that happy, playful, mischievous way which had nothing to do with evil and everything to do with being Crowley. This was their thing, their secret space in the world, and it felt incredibly, wonderfully freeing to revel in it. 

“Sounds fair,” he agreed.

“Good.”

Crowley reached out, with the arm that had been resting over his head, and ran the tips of his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, pulling a tangle free. He didn’t lay his hand there, afterwards - that would have been too much - but the lingering feel of him was more than enough to flood the angel’s chest with contented warmth.

“When do you leave for Canterbury?” The demon asked, dropping his head back against the pillows.

“Two days.” 

“How long are you there for?”

“Oh…” the angel sighed. “However long it takes to convince a Friar to stop pilfering from the church coffers and turn his heart to charitable deeds.”

“Charitable deeds,” Crowley pulled a face. “Eugh.” 

Aziraphale felt dimly aware that they were close to breaking the first rule of this engagement - which was to keep it separate from work - but Crowley did not enquire further and soon their conversation turned to his time in France, again. To the wine he had collected. To the bittersweet tale of the young noblewoman he had been tempting into running away from her betrothed. 

He had played a rather passive role in the whole thing, Crowley admitted, playing idly with the wooden headboard. Still, he felt strangely invested when the temptation failed and she went back to her family and her fiancé, and a lifetime of being told who to be and what to do.

“Sounds like a miserable lot.”

“Perhaps she’ll find a way to be happy anyway?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“Perhaps she will,” the demon murmured back. Then, seeming to remember that happiness was not his intention, he frowned and rolled over, bringing his face so close that his eyes filled Aziraphale’s horizon. 

It would have been frightening, the angel thought, if he in any way feared Crowley. But he didn’t. He never had done - not even in the beginning. He should have. His friend was a demon, sent from Hell to wring the Earth and humanity for all it was worth. But he was more than that, too. 

Crowley was rich and complex. He was clever, and brave, and kind, and beautiful, and never cruel - never beyond what Earth required of a creature to survive. There was far more to Crowley than what he had been made for. There were depths of him that even Aziraphale, having known him for more than fifty centuries, did not know. 

Reaching up, the angel brushed a thumb across the underside of his friend’s lip, feeling the roughness of a day’s stubble growth rasp against his skin. 

“I’d miracle it away, but I’m not allowed,” the demon grumbled, gaze tracing the lines of his face, down to his mouth. 

“Pity. I was thinking of asking you to kiss me.” 

“Were you, now?”

The angel felt both of their minds hovering over their stumbling progress to bed, earlier - the roughness of the demon’s cheeks no impediment. 

Technically, kissing was part of this arrangement. Technically, they were still in bed, so it was all above board. Kissing, by itself, felt a little close to the edge of what they had agreed upon, but they were not doing this strictly for release, Aziraphale reasoned. This was about comfort, too. Kissing could be a comfort every bit as much as sex.

And, if he tried hard enough, Aziraphale could almost ignore the emotion burning within him. If he tried hard enough, he could almost ignore the faint warmth that radiated back from the creature beside him. 

It was going to hurt so much, he thought. It was going to hurt so much, when they had to pull away…

But they did not have to pull away, tonight. Tonight was theirs and these rooms were as safe as any in the city, and Crowley was warm and alive against him. And willpower was slipping beyond the angel’s grasp. 

“I suppose I could ask you to kiss me, anyway,” he murmured, eyes full of the demon’s defiant gold. 

“You sure? Wouldn’t want to rough you up, angel.”

“I’m sure.”

So they did. They kissed for a while, then they fell into a restful sleep, bodies tangled, the demon’s belly pressed against the angel’s back, one arm thrown protectively over his side. And it wasn’t about sex, or release, or even comfort against the world, but much more about love than either of them would ever care to admit. 

.

They broke the second of their rules the next morning. 

Though they had said their goodbyes within the confines of the room, as Aziraphale stood on the landing, watching his friend fixing the sleeve of his jacket, he could not help but lean over and kiss him on the cheek. Then, as Crowley turned his head to give him a disapproving look, he could not help but kiss his mouth as well. It was their first kiss beyond the confines of a safe space and Crowley had tasted of coffee, and sugar, and cinnamon. 

The demon didn’t say anything about breaking the rule, though he did roll his eyes and nudge Aziraphale on towards the stairs. And, as much as he pretended not to enjoy the moment, the angel noticed him smiling slightly as they made their way outside afterwards.

.

The rest of the rules were broken over a series of years. 

The one about limiting their interactions was the next to go. It had been hopeful to the point of lunacy that they would not end up meeting more frequently, now that this new arrangement had been put in place. The physical comfort of one another was just too much of a lure - and the more they met, the more they wanted to meet. 

Within the space of fifty years, they went from seeing one another once every decade to once every year, massively increasing the chances of someone spotting them together. 

.

As the sixteenth century dribbled towards the seventeenth, they broke a third rule by meeting on the rooftop of Crowley’s Parisian apartments, on a very beautiful November night. Meeting at one of their official residences was a huge risk, but the view from the rooftop had been so clear, and none of their people were due in the area, and Crowley had so wanted much to show Aziraphale an astrological phenomenon.

So, the angel had relented and spent the night in enemy territory, watching a distant supernova glow in the night sky - burning so bright that the humans below began to discuss the unchangeability of the heavens. And Crowley had sat on the ramparts and pointed out the major celestial bodies, wrapped in a scarf and two blankets and smoking something that smelled like more than tobacco. 

She had been incredibly beautiful, that night; tall and pale, with hair that tumbled all the way down her back. During her days masquerading as a local socialite, it was powdered and twisted into elaborate patterns but, tonight, those red locks danced freely in the wind, just like it had on Eden’s walls.

From his position amid a pile of cushions, Aziraphale had marvelled at her - marvelled at them and how eagerly they were walking into this minefield of emotion. The situation was a little unbelievable, really. Here he was, the angel set to guard Eden’s eastern gate, still on Earth after nearly six thousand years. Here he was, watching a supernova burn alongside the demon he was supposed to have been guarding humanity from. The serpent demon, who had once been an angel, who had once helped create the very stars she pointed to. 

It was such a strange, circular, poetic thought. Aziraphale had felt so very small, in that moment, on that rooftop. The purpose of it all had sort of stretched out around him, overwhelming sense. The greatness of the world, and the stars, and The Plan had washed over him and left him dizzy. Then Crowley made some risqué joke about binary star systems and the confusion died away. 

Warmth slipped in to replace it and Aziraphale moved over to sit beside his demon, and share in her wine, and her stories, and a few breaths of whatever she was smoking. And even, (a while later and with a little tempting), a bit of action under the blankets. 

.

They broke a fourth rule thirty years (and twenty four meetings) later, just after the turn of the century. Aziraphale had just returned from Edinburgh and - despite having met just four months before, at the Globe - he used work as an excuse to lure Crowley into his company again.

Though the pretence was diaphanous, at best, the demon turned up at the rendezvous point. The angel found him lounging behind the headquarters of the British East India Company, bag of candied chestnuts in pocket and an eagerness in his eyes that Aziraphale would have deemed unseemly, should Crowley not have been a demon and his entire nature fallen into that category anyway. 

“Your lot are up to something,” the angel had complained. 

“No good, probably.”

“Well, obviously.” 

It was one of their little patters. They repeated them every time they met. They had repeated this one just three months previous.

Aziraphale eyed Crowley, who watched him back with entirely too much interest. 

“If it involves my projects, north of the city proper, you will give me a heads-up, won’t you?” He asked the demon. “Only, I’ve been trying to establish a hospital up there for quite some time and getting the land deeds sorted out has proved an absolute nightmare. It can’t really take any more delay.”

It was the first time he had asked for such a favour - something specifically about work - and Crowley had watched him with a degree of unease, before heaving a sigh and nodding his head. 

“We’ve got nothing afoot out that way,” he confirmed, tossing the bag of candied nuts over to the angel, then leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. He had that look in his eye that he sometimes got, as if he were highly aware of the power Aziraphale held in their arrangement and was both irritated and aroused by it, simultaneously. “Dagon is in town, but they are working on something south of the river. It shouldn’t concern anything of yours. I’ll let you know if I catch wind of anything to do with a hospital.”

“Oh, good. Thank you,” the angel had beamed at him. 

“Not at all.” 

They had stood and considered one another. Then, eventually, Crowley asked him back for a brandy and they had slunk off to a dark corner of London and spent two days thoroughly ignoring all of their responsibilities. 

.

By the turn of the seventeenth century, they were breaking their fifth rule in the newly minted St James park. 

England’s new monarch had transformed the once hunting land into beautiful sculpted gardens and the pair of them had wandered through it quite freely, amongst the other perambulating creatures of the early evening. 

From the outset, around half of the occupants of the park were not supposed to be there together - so the pair were never out of place. Indeed, Crowley had been delighted when Aziraphale had suggested the location. Lechery, adultery and impromptu couplings abounded there, he had told the angel with a grin, thumbs hooked into his belt as he had sauntered along. It had been the human’s work, but Crowley had definitely claimed St James’s park was one of his. 

“Hardly a place for an angel.”

“Well, then, better we meet here than where I’m staying, at the moment,” the angel had retorted. He was residing in a disillusioned monastery’s gatehouse, transcribing old texts for the schoolhouse across the square. “Terrible place for a demon. Been used as a place of worship for nearly five hundred years. You’d probably discorporate from all the residual goodness. I doubt you'd last two minutes.” 

Those last words had caught the attention of a trio of ladies passing in the opposite direction and they all turned their heads to look. The angel had blushed, realising what his words might have been mistaken for, while Crowley had grinned and given them all a sweeping bow. 

“My lover,” he indicated towards Aziraphale, as the ladies looked shocked. “Ever complimentary about my stamina.”

Giving soft noises of horror, the three women had bustled off, and the demon had chuckled to himself for a moment before turning and catching sight of the angel’s expression. 

“Oh, for Satan’s sake,” he’d rolled his eyes. “It was a joke. Besides, who would they tell?” 

He was right, of course, but it had ruffled Aziraphale to hear the word ‘lover’ spoken aloud. It was an entirely apt word for what they were doing - as much as he wished it weren’t. He was still very much in love with Crowley. The feeling had not faded at all. And, even more concerning, he had started to suspect that it might not be entirely unreciprocated. 

As a principality, created to live amongst humanity, Aziraphale had always been able to sense love. He could feel it in people, read the traces of it left behind on the Earth, but he’d never been able to sense it in Crowley. His assumption, initially, was that the demon didn’t feel love - but Crowley had proved him wrong on that account through his actions. Something that couldn’t love would never have cared about the world or humanity so much as Crowley did. 

So, Crowley loved, then. But was it the same sort of love? It couldn’t be. Aziraphale knew it couldn’t be - his friend was a demon, after all. But if it wasn’t the same sort of love that he could feel, Aziraphale was hard pressed to figure out what it was. Crowley kept a wall up around his emotions so consistently that Aziraphale only glimpsed through it in times where the demon was feeling vulnerable through anger or grief. Or, as it turned out, the occasional moment of ecstasy. 

Over the last hundred and sixty seven years, there had been a couple of occasions where they had collapsed together, spent and sweat-coated into their bedsheets, and he had felt Crowley’s defences break a little - torrents of pent up longing and need pouring out of him. Lying tangled in his body, Aziraphale had been able to sense the demon’s frustration and fondness. And, amongst it all, there had been another emotion, too. It had been furthest from the surface, buried deep beneath the rest, but it had definitely been there. 

_Love_. 

It had not been the sort of love he had expected to find inside a demon. It was not a love bound to lust, or greed, or obsession. It had not been some vague demonic interpretation of a human emotion. It had not been shallow, or simple, or easy to quantify (which was perhaps why Aziraphale had missed it, the first few times Crowley had accidentally broadcast it in his direction). No, the emotion was something else. Something far more familiar. Something that the angel would not have been surprised to feel pouring out of a human. Something not unlike the emotion growing inside himself. 

Crowley’s love had felt honest, and potent, and - though it had only lasted ten seconds or so before the demon had gathered himself and pulled his guard back up - the angel began to suspect that he had rather underestimated how important he was to his friend. He began to suspect that what Crowley felt toward him might not be some vague demonic interpretation of love at all, but something perilously real and multifaceted. 

Having realised this, Aziraphale knew it was really his place to put a stop to what they were doing. They had decided to enjoy this physical aspect of Earthly life on the understanding that they both needed an outlet and that they trusted one another. If they were using it to grow closer, however, justifications sort of fell away. 

There could be no pretence of maintaining a friendly professional distance, after all, if they whispered love to one another as they indulged their bodies. Aziraphale was not even allowed to call Crowley ‘friend’ - and surely it would be worse to call him ‘lover’? The angel was already terrified of what he would do for Crowley, if the demon asked. He was even more terrified of what Crowley would do for him.

It had taken two weeks to convince himself not to immediately end their little arrangement after first identifying love in the demon - and a whole month to decide that Crowley’s affection for him was not going to complicate their situation. The emotion did not feel new, after all. And, if Crowley had been feeling this way already, then the only thing that had really changed was that he knew about it - and Crowley didn’t _know_ he knew about it, so they could ignore it if they wanted to. Things could continue as they were, Aziraphale decided, so long as Crowley was happy to pretend. 

So, they had continued to pretend together - Crowley’s guard slipping very occasionally, but neither of them acknowledging the moments. Each time, Aziraphale became a little less wary of the feeling. Each time, he secretly enjoyed it a little bit more. And, each time, he became less convinced that Crowley didn’t know that he could sense it. (There was always something secretive in the way the demon looked at him in the moments after he snapped his wall back into place - in the moments before he rolled over, or downed the rest of his wine, or made a joke designed to make the angel blush and look away). 

So, Crowley was a little in love with him. And he didn’t seem to mind that Aziraphale knew. And Aziraphale was very in love with Crowley, but he was very good at pretending that it was under control. And neither of them ever said anything about the situation, so it didn’t go anywhere - which made it okay, the angel decided. It was okay, so long as they continued to restrict what they did to the physical. So long as they were careful. They were already in this, after all. They had meant too much to one another for millennia, already. What was a little bit of love, to add to the great list of things that they were hiding from their masters?

Hearing Crowley say ‘lover’ out loud shook Aziraphale, however. There was something terrifyingly grounding about it - even capped by the two letters that changed it from a verb to a noun. Speaking it out loud could make it real. And real would change them. 

Aziraphale watched his friend very carefully as they wound themselves together, that night, in the small attic room above an inn, but Crowley showed no sign of venturing further down the line of verbalising his feelings. Quite the opposite, in fact. After they had finished, the demon gave his hip a little squeeze, then withdrew back to his own side of the bed, cleaned himself off, and flopped down on one side to sleep.

Aziraphale watched him gratefully for a few minutes feeling very soft, and very conflicted, and very low on willpower. Then, giving in, he spoiled Crowley's offer of distance by slinking across the bed and pressing himself flush against the demon’s back. 

“Thank you, Crowley.”

He often thanked him, afterwards. It was a bit of a recurring joke, after he’d done it the first time. Though he pretended not to, Aziraphale could tell Crowley enjoyed it. 

Tonight, however, he received only a low grunt in reply. 

“Thank you,” the angel tried again, kissing Crowley’s shoulder. 

This time, he was rewarded with a tiny wrinkle of the demon’s nose and a tiny-

“Yup. Right.” 

Lifting his head, Aziraphale rested a cheek against his friend’s shoulder, peering down at his face. The room was unlit, far too dark for Aziraphale’s human-like eyes to make out detail, but he could see a pale wash of cheek and the dark fringe of lashes. He could see the brow - uncreased - an attempt at impassivity.

“Thank you. Thank you, Crowley.”

Something twitched at the corner of the demon’s mouth. 

“You’re brilliant and wonderful, Crowley.”

A hint of a smile.

“You’ve come all the way over from the continent just because I asked you to.” He wrapped an arm around the side of him, pressing belly into back. “You are the very finest of creatures and i’m truly sorry for snapping at you, earlier.”

“ _Ngk_.” A bit more smile. 

Aziraphale pressed a tiny kiss against his shoulder.

“…you’re very pretty, Crowley.” 

“Oh, fuck off!” the demon twisted, burying his ever-growing smile down into his pillow. He didn’t wriggle his body away, though. He didn’t leave the safe circle of Aziraphale’s arms. “You’re welcome, alright?” He grumbled, eventually, voice muffled by the pillow. “Give me a time and place and I’ll always turn up and fuck you into next Tuesday. Happy?” 

Aziraphale smiled, pressed up tight against his friend’s shoulder blades, the narrow strength of the demon wrapped up in his arm. His friend was lean and strong, and brilliant and wonderful, and brave and clever and sweet, and _his._

_All his._

“Happy,” he murmured, against the back of his neck. 

“Right. Now shut up and let me sleep.” 

The angel smiled. 

“Goodnight, Crowley.”

“Night, angel.”

.

Strangely, the rule about not using miracles outlasted all but one of the others. Perhaps it was something about separating what they were doing from their everyday life. Perhaps it was about maintaining the illusion that they were only there for the physical. Aziraphale didn't know. In the end, however, it was something not at all unrelated to their celestial natures which made them break it. 

.

They had been tumbling back to one of Crowley’s safe houses after an evening at the theatre. It was dark when they arrived, the doorway half shrouded in ivy - built into the lee of a great stone wall which Aziraphale could not see over. Crowley had to fumble with a key and a lock to let them inside. 

When asked ‘why the effort’ with mortal locks and keys, the demon gave a garbled response about getting clever with his protective wards. He’d been being more careful about where he slept, he explained, ever since Ligur had stumbled upon one of his secret hideouts, a few years back. It was all fine and well them knowing his official residence, Crowley had grumbled, but he would enjoy having some parts of his Earthly life that lay outside the purview of Hell. What was the point of being topside otherwise? Theatre could only sustain a man-shaped creature for so long… 

Thinking that their opinions on what sustained a person had rather shifted, over the past two hundred years, Aziraphale had followed him inside and pulled the door closed behind him - and was not at all surprised when the demon immediately turned around and pushed him into it.

It had been six years since they had seen one another, this time, and they’d felt every moment of it. Aziraphale had groaned as his friend’s hands dropped to his hips and he stepped the length of their bodies flush. He let his head fall back as Crowley’s very clever tongue sought out his favourite spots along his neck. 

Marvelling that the movement could still draw so much heat when they must have done this upwards of a hundred times now, the angel knotted his fingers into the demon’s hair and let him lead for a while, accepting the frantic pace and the slightly rough nudges to get them into position. Then, when the sensation of his friend working his hand down the front of his trousers became too much, he shrugged him off and pushed him up against the neighbouring wall instead. 

Crowley gave a yelp which broke the moment entirely. 

Aziraphale leapt back. 

“Shit!” Crowley was shrinking away from the wall.

“Crowley - what’s wrong?”

“Shit, shit, shit-shit-shit-,”

His words were almost all hiss. He sounded terrified. In agony. 

The light was too low to see what was going on and, in the moment, Aziraphale panicked. He miracled a ball of light to the air without thinking, and the glow revealed Crowley clutching at his right arm, which had a series of horrible wounds all the way down its length. 

Aziraphale had stared. The blistered burns had not been there earlier that evening. He had seen the demon’s forearms when he had rolled his shirtsleeves back, just after dinner. 

Stepping forwards, he reached out, but Crowley shrank away. 

“No-!” 

“Crowley, what happened? Are you okay? Did I-,” he wanted to ask ‘did I hurt you’ but he couldn’t think how he could have and it felt strangely patronising - and Crowley was not looking at him with anger, besides. If anything, his expression was shame. “What’s wrong?” Aziraphale asked again, pacing over and hovering beside his friend. “What happened?”

Crowley threw a glance over at the far wall, then back at Aziraphale, hissing under his breath. 

“Ss’ the blassssted wall…”

The angel frowned. “Come again?”

“It wass the sstupid, fucking wall,” the demon spat, looking down at the floor. His eyes were blazing and defensive. “There’s a church on the other sside. It’s conssecrated sstone.”

Aziraphale felt his insides sink with panic.

“ _Crowley…_ What in Heaven’s name are you thinking, loitering around somewhere with consecrated stone? That’s incredibly foolish, dear boy. You could have been discorporated - you could have been worse!” 

Crowley snarled, looking away. 

Pity welling up inside him, Aziraphale reached out, but the demon just jerked himself out of reach again. Groaning, he paced over to the far end of the room - which Aziraphale could now see was small and made up of only a few dressers, a small stove, and a wide bed. Reaching the bed, the demon threw himself down on the end of the bed and hung his head, still clutching his arm, still breathing roughly against the pain. 

“What were you thinking?” Aziraphale asked, softly. 

Crowley's face twisted. 

“Nnng… wasss just one wall, you know… nn’… sssometimes it’ss fine, conssecrated ssstone. You can never tell until you touch it. Some placess jusst burn a bit. Othersss…” He made a noise to indicate immolation, then winced. “I thought it might be an added layer of protection,” he gritted his teeth. “You know, againssst any of my lot who might come calling.” He breathed very harshly for a moment, trying to flex his fingers before giving up and drawing his arm up, against his belly. “Thought it might be sssafer. For usss.”

 _Us_.

Something tore inside of the angel. He wanted to pull Crowley against him and whisper a lot of things that he wasn’t allowed to say. Instead, he gathered himself and focussed on the bloody mess now soaking into the demon’s shirt. 

“Will you let me help, please?” 

It was probably only the fact that Crowley was terrible at denying him anything that made the demon accept. Still silent, he turned his face away but let his arm fall a little from his side, and Aziraphale moved forwards to look at it. 

The skin was horribly damaged. The back of his arm, where he had been in direct contact with the stone, had burned right through to the bone. The angel could see little streaks of fat and flesh and sinew along the edges. The sight of it turned his stomach. 

Aziraphale had served in the aftermath of battles, before - during wars which had consumed thousands of lives. He had carried plague victims to their hospital beds and soothed the agony of those dying from a multitude of diseases. He knew blood, and rot, and fever. He knew pain. Seeing it on the face of someone he loved, however, was an entirely different experience. It made his Earthly heart pump too fast. 

He worked quickly. Conjuring up a bowl of salted water, he washed the wound and sluiced the worst of the damage away. Tearing the fabric of the demon’s shirt, he cleaned the area around it, also, then traced his hands over the surface of the burn, feeling for the edges of the damage, feeling along the lines of his friend’s body - finding a way to cut the worst out and pull the remaining flesh back together. 

He found a solution between planes of muscle and began to knit it all back into place. You’ve done this before, he told himself, to calm the racing of his heart. This is just a body. Ignore the demon inside and concentrate on the physical. Muscle goes into tendon, which goes into bone. Pull the fat that remains over the damaged muscle and force the skin to grow. And then another layer. And then another. 

Under his ministrations, the burn slowly sealed, then turned pink, then white, then something close to normal. All the while, Crowley sat very still, face averted, breathing heavily. It was clearly agony. Every time the angel washed the wound and pulled it to knit, he flinched terribly. He only cried out once, though - right at the end, when Aziraphale wrapped his hands around the arm and sent a pulse of energy through, to ensure blood would perfuse. 

Letting out a strained gasp, Crowley turned his cheek to rest on his own shoulder. He remained deadly silent as Aziraphale leant away from him, returning his hands to his lap. 

They sat like that for a good half a minute, the silence heavy between them, Crowley staring everywhere but at the angel. Eventually, Aziraphale reached some sort of internal capacity for awkwardness. Murmuring his friend’s name, he tilted his head to try and catch his eye.

“Does it feel any better?”

Ignoring him, the demon sniffed, then abruptly stood up from the end of the bed. He was very unsteady on his feet. Aziraphale almost stood to help him, but a little grunt and the wave of a hand indicated that Crowley didn’t want it. 

Gathering himself, the demon staggered over towards the cabinets and rooted around inside the largest. Withdrawing a pewter cup and a bottle of amber liquid, he set them on the scratched wooden surface and poured himself a measure. 

Aziraphale noticed that he was only using his good arm. The other - though it looked for all intents and purposes normal - was clutched close to his side. It remained clutched to his side as Crowley lifted the glass to his lips, then as he poured himself a second. 

They stood and sat in silence for another minute. Then, Aziraphale tried again. 

“Crowley…?” 

The demon’s mouth twisted, top lip curling back but corners turning downwards. It was almost a sneer, but not quite. It didn’t feel nasty, but it did feel angry and defensive, and slightly dangerous. He was shaking, Aziraphale noticed. The hand on the bottle was shaking. The hand at his side was shaking too - his newly-repaired thumb clenched over newly-repaired fingers. 

“Are you okay?” The angel asked, voice small. 

“I'm _fine_.” The demon’s words came out in a rasp which sounded like it had been dragged straight out of Hell. It made the hair on the back of Aziraphale’s neck stand on end. 

“Are you sure?”

“I know when I’m bloody fine, Aziraphale!” He sounded awful - desperate and furious. His voice had audibly broken over the angel’s name.

Aziraphale watched his friend’s back for all of ten seconds, then willed himself to his feet, willed himself to be brave. 

Crossing the small room, he waved his hand, causing the candles sitting out on tables to light. Then, he waved his hand again, killing the miracled ball of light from the air above, banishing its holy glow. As he waved his hand for a third time, the blood on the floor and the bitter scent of burned flesh vanished, replaced with crisp November night. Then, he stepped up close behind his friend - his friend who had been his lover for the past ninety days, stolen over the past two hundred years - and placed a hand very softly on the small of his back. 

Crowley didn’t flinch. Aziraphale took that as a good sign and halted there. 

“I’m sorry that I pushed you, my dear,” he murmured. “I’m sorry that it hurt.” 

“Wasn’t your fault, was it?” The demon snapped, but there was less fight in his voice than there had been, before. “You didn’t know about the sodding stone…” 

“If I had, I wouldn’t have had you anywhere near it.” Aziraphale rubbed a thumb against his back. 

“S’not the sort of thing I was going to say,” Crowley hissed, still staring at the blank wall ahead of him. “Ssort of breaks the mood, doesn’t it, when you bring sssomeone back, at the end of a night…” He pulled on a voice. “ _Oh, don’t press me up against the Eastern wall or I’ll end up as a sssizzling pile of thrice-damned ssludge on the floor_.” His tone was dryly sarcastic, but Aziraphale knew that nothing could have been further from funny.

“Does it still hurt?” He asked, softly.

“A bit.” There was silence, for a moment. Then, all of Crowley’s muscles tensed and he let out a low hiss of intolerable frustration. “…’sss not like it’s not my own fault.”

“Don’t.” Aziraphale squeezed fingertips against the demon’s back, through a few layers of cotton and embroidered silk. “Don’t do that.” 

“Why not? It’sss always all my own damned fault.”

“Crowley-,”

“M’own fault for picking thiss ssstupid place,” his words were slurring again, blurring into one long hiss. “Own fault for not telling you ‘bout the s-sstupid wall… My own fault for burning.” 

“Don’t do that.”

“For asssking… Alwayss…”

“Crow-,”

“I can never jusssst shut up… Can never sshut-,”

“I don’t want you to shut up, darling.”

Aziraphale felt him shudder, the sob inaudible. 

A wave of overwhelming pity flooded through him, and overwhelming love, and an overwhelming need to do something. 

“Listen, I’m going to touch you,” he murmured, keeping his voice as calm as he could because this was not his loss to cry over. It was not his loss to mourn. “If you don’t want me to then let me know. I can stop anytime you want.”

The demon hissed, but did not pull away as Aziraphale stepped around to face him side-on. He did not lift his eyes as the angel reached out and ran a hand down the back of his head, to the nape of his neck - but his face contorted as Aziraphale squeezed him there. His brow creased and his mouth twisted. Then, as the angel stepped forwards to guide him gently into an embrace, Crowley’s shoulder’s dropped and his posture softened, and suddenly there was no need to guide. 

As Aziraphale’s hands came up, both of Crowleys were already reaching out to grasp him; his body already turning in, his forehead already dropping towards the angel’s shoulder. And then all of the demon was pressed up against him and Aziraphale was suddenly, potently reminded of a night, nearly two thousand years ago, when they had stood in a dark room and cried into one another. 

How everything changed, he thought, burying his face into the side of Crowley’s hair, breathing in the scent of him. How everything stayed the same. They had cried for the loss of innocence, that night. And they cried for it, now, again. Crowley loudly. Aziraphale completely silently, against his friend’s neck. Because this wasn’t about a wall, or a burned arm, or anything of the physical world, at all. It was about the ‘why' behind it - about the line that ‘why’ drew between them. 

.

They stood for a long time, demon sobbing into angel. Then, eventually, they moved back to the bed and sat, side by side. Then, Crowley lay back and stared up at the ceiling and Aziraphale followed suit, their hands lying together atop the bedspread. 

They lay that way until the moon had risen far enough through the sky to spill through the room’s narrow window. Its soft blue light fell across the bed, across their skin, marking them both equally. 

“Sorry about all of this,” Crowley sighed, after a time. His voice sounded clear again. A good cry took the weight off. Aziraphale knew that from experience. 

Turning his head on the sheets, the angel looked at his friend. 

“Don’t apologise.” 

“Bit of a downer on the evening.” 

“Nowhere I’d rather be.” The honesty must have come across in his voice because the heights of Crowley’s cheeks flushed slightly and he looked over, eyes a little fearful, a little hopeful. 

“Nowhere, angel?” Wide golden eyes traced Aziraphale’s features. “Not that library, in Alexandria? That little nook, just off the third stair by the western window, with your desk and all your scrolls?” 

The angel’s mouth pulled back into a smile. How on Earth could Crowley remember that? He barely remembered that. It seemed almost a dream. It had happened so long ago, now. 

“No,” he smiled.

“Not in those Roman baths, up on the Esquiline hill? The ones with that awful, uneven tiling that you liked to feel against your feet?”

The angel shook his head, smiling wider. 

“No.”

“Not even that little place, at Jerusalem, beyond the southern wall?”

“The serpent’s pool?” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “That was hardly my favourite spot in the city.”

“Could have fooled me,” the serpent demon smiled - a cautious smile, a soft offering of mirth after sadness. “You were down there often enough.” 

“Well, I was keeping an eye on you, wasn’t I? You kept trying to block the aqueducts.” 

Crowley’s cheek twitched slightly, a wave of emotions and memories trailing across his face. His warm, golden eyes slipped away from Aziraphale’s face for a moment, staring off into time beyond. For a moment, their breaths seemed to draw air flavoured with sage and bellflower, and pine. Warm dusty air, and the scent of blue skies.

“I did, didn’t I?” The demon sighed out, nostalgically. “I suppose I enjoyed the irony of flooding my own pool.”

“It was a nice pool,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Good and warm.”

“I heard the young soldiers often snuck out to bathe there, after dark.”

Crowley chuckled. “Yes. Yes, they did.”

“Letch.” 

“Well, I am a demon.” Some of the mirth slipped away from his face, something sombre coming over him again. He looked away, back up at the ceiling. 

A few moments passed. 

“I do know that, Crowley,” Aziraphale felt compelled to say, when the silence had stretched on a little too long. “It's not as if I forget, every time.”

The backs of their hands were still pressed together. Stretching an index finger out, the angel curled it around the demon’s more slender one, feeling the sinews tighten as his friend curled back. 

“We can stop this, you know-,” Crowley’s voice broke the silence, and it was hoarser this time - a little harsh, but also fearful. “We can stop this anytime you want. Go back to how things were. No hard feelings.”

“Do you want to stop?” 

Crowley turned his head, hair rasping against the sheet. Aziraphale mirrored him, so that they were facing one another, fingers still linked below. 

“No. You?” 

“No,” the angel answered truthfully. _Never_ , his heart whimpered. “Nowhere I’d rather be.”

Crowley rolled up onto his side and leant up, reaching one hand over to trace Aziraphale’s cheek. Lowering his face over the angel’s, he let their noses brush, but halted there.

And, for just a fraction of a second, there was a shifting in the room, like someone had changed the pressure or let out the air. Emotion hit like a wave; a sharp impact that soon became a tumbling wrathful force, pulling the angel under and holding him there, unable to get back to the surface. 

Breathing it in, Aziraphale could taste depths of feeling, all twisted up in itself. He could feel desperate, overwhelming longing and hot, molten want; swooping joy and squeezing tension, devotion and resignation; burning hope and the warm blanket of safety; and overwhelming, overpowering belonging. 

Then Crowley blinked and it was gone.

Aziraphale breathed in, hard. 

“You’ll tell me if that changes, won’t you?” Crowley asked, fingertips warm against his cheek. “You’ll give me some warning, first? Not sure I can handle it, otherwise.” 

It was an intensely vulnerable moment. 

The angel reached up to touch the outside of his hand, his wrist, his arm, fingers tracing skin that he could feel his own power clinging to. His power, clinging to mortal skin, clinging to the immortal soul of a demon; his predestined enemy, the other half of him, the only thing he’d ever been given which had stood the test of time. A companion he had been denied. A home had proved impossible. A cause, Aziraphale had tried desperately to cling to - but it was growing more difficult with every year. Crowley was the only thing that he was sure of. 

The angel closed his eyes. 

_Why in Heaven’s name had She made this so painful?_

“I will,” he told the demon. “I promise.”

“We can make it one of our rules,” Crowley whispered against him, mouth forming the shadow of a smile. 

“We’ve broken every one of our rules.”

“Not all of them. You always wake me before you leave.” 

The angel opened his eyes to look up at his friend, before tilting his head and inviting him in for a kiss. Crowley leant in and took it. Then another. And they kissed for a long time. Then, they pulled their bodies together and drew their wings out - slipping inside one another to share sensation - and lost themselves, as one, in the small eternity of the night. 

.

They never broke that last rule, right up until the day they parted as lovers, a total of three hundred and thirty nine years after that first night in Rome. 

.


	10. 1850 CE, London I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale reunite after a year apart. Some fun is had. An accidental confession is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot it was Monday again, yesterday. Please forgive me.

**1850 CE, London**

**Part I**

.

They had shared the rest of the seventeenth century between a few sporadic meetings - their work keeping them separate for the most part - but found an abundance of time in the eighteenth, after Crowley had been permanently posted to London. 

Hell had apparently wanted to rectify the rising influence of good in the city and the serpent of Eden had seemed the perfect foil to Eden’s guardian. So, the demon had been uprooted from Paris and sent over by boat, in much the same fashion that they had followed one another since the beginning. That was how they worked, after all. One of them went somewhere, created an imbalance, and the other would be sent after. Demon after angel, or angel after demon, slightly out of sync. 

It was an undeniable pleasure, having Crowley living nearby. Aziraphale had become used to finding faint traces of his friend’s magic around the world. They had been around for quite some time, after all, and it was common to retrace old paths and find memories of past deeds already there. It was something else entirely, however, to be able to stumble across fresh signs of the demon while going about his daily activities. 

It was a novelty to trip over some of Crowley’s stupid flagstones (set to appear quite flat, but actually raised just enough to catch the sole of an unwitting boot) while travelling to a church in the south of the city. Or to pop out to fetch pastries from his very favourite bakery and find that all traffic in the vicinity had ground to a halt because someone had placed a spell over an intersection to spook the horses. 

While obviously disapproving of the chaos being inflicted on the greater London area, Aziraphale found it comforting to be able to feel the demon nearby. Often, the angel knew whether Crowley was in the city or abroad simply by the flavour of magic in the air on a morning. He could tell, too, if the demon had been working in his part of town because his own magic began to resonate at a slightly different frequency. 

Their powers did not necessarily contradict one another’s, but they did have an impact. More than once, Aziraphale had been forced to rework a spell because the demon’s presence had changed the baseline ambience of a place. Sometimes, he got a bit cheeky about it and actually threaded his own work through Crowley’s lingering magic. It was a little calling card - a little show of territorialism, which anyone else would read as dominance, but that he was sure the demon would secretly enjoy.

As London began to expand at a rapid pace, the angel abandoned his previous enclave in Greenwich and opened a bookshop on the north side of the river, creating a new persona and backstory to fit in among the humans there. It had taken him a long time to feel at home in London but, as he showed his favourite bits of it off to Crowley, ownership sort of grew within him. The place began to feel like his at last. 

The demon, of course, fit in with as much ease as he always did in a new body, or location, or persona. He found lodgings in a new development just off Hyde park and carved a life for himself there, among the grand manor houses. (Aziraphale carefully avoided knowing his exact address for many years - though he slipped up in seventeen ninety three as they shared crepes on the banks of the Seine. They had been talking fundamental human rights and what role government should play in ensuring them, and Crowley had made some tasteless joke about writing a strongly worded letter once he got back home. He had offhandedly used the street name, which had caused the angel to remark - more out of surprise than anything else - that he hadn’t realised Crowley lived so close to the bookshop. The demon had eyed him carefully for a moment, then thrown a shrug. The Mayfair apartment was well appointed and convenient, he dismissed, and they hadn’t discussed the matter any further). 

The eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth with minimal fuss. Fashions changed and industry thrived. The populations of humans shifted around the place as different jobs became more and less prominent and labour forces shifted with immigration. 

Crowley discovered a talent for fiddling around in economics and was soon thoroughly invested in goings on in the various trading companies that worked out of the English capital. He caused mayhem on a far wider scale than in previous centuries because of the world’s increased connectivity. There was no colony or trade that did not get fiddled with in some way. (Though it was nearly twenty years before he sheepishly confessed to helping incapacitate the British slave trade. There were some things too unambiguously good for a demon to admit to without three bottles of wine in him). In between bouts of activity, he developed a habit of taking very long naps. 

Aziraphale, meanwhile, spent the time that he was not in the bookshop trying to ensure fair working conditions for the humans in the city’s many factories and poorhouses. Charity over reform seemed to be the current mode of thought, but as the century neared its halfway point, there were some signs of progress. Conditions slowly improved for children, at least. Humans started living longer. Medicine got better. Vaccinations were invented. Income taxes were levied, to balance it all out. 

All in all, it was one of the better times to be alive and the angel and the demon enjoyed it all thoroughly. They were kept busy apart and happy together, and both of their Arrangements continued to work. They established a selection of safe spaces across the city where they met up. Sometimes they met just to dine, or talk shop. Other times, they booked out a room or a suite at one of their favourite hotels and spent a few days together, closeted away from the world. 

Their last days together, as lovers, were spent in such a fashion. 

.

Crowley had been out of town for ten months, beforehand - stirring nationalist rebellion in Ireland. The morning they met, he had only just arrived back into London by train. 

He was full of excitement at it all when they arrived at the front of one of the more luxurious hotels on their repertoire. As Aziraphale picked up keys and led the way upstairs, he talked ceaselessly; about all that had happened while he’d been away, about the famine in Ireland, and the occupation by British soldiers, and the multifaceted arguments for independence. He could sometimes be a bit much when he was off on one of his rants, but they had spent long enough apart, this time, that Aziraphale found his rambling flow only charming. 

As the demon unpacked his bag and threw himself down in an armchair with a glass of brandy, the angel listened. He sat, and listened, and watched Crowley’s eyes light and his hands move; listened as he steered the conversation from Ireland to railways, to trains, to new designs of self-propelled mechanical vehicles. The demon was incredibly beautiful when he talked. 

Crowley managed two hours on steam and the internal combustion engine over dinner, and then a bit more while draped across the sofa, afterwards. Eventually, however, the need to touch began to outweigh the soft delight of watching his friend’s animated face and Aziraphale had stood - walking over and lifting the wine glass out of his long-fingered hand. 

Setting it aside, he stepped in between Crowley's sprawled legs and reached out in wordless offer. A little surprised but very willing, the demon had allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet and led through to the bedroom, and they had remained there for the rest of the evening and most of the next morning, as well. 

Wrapped up in one another, the weekend had slipped quickly away. Friday and Saturday were lost in a haze of happy rediscovery. Saturday night had meant a trip to see one of the angel’s favourite composers in action, then on to one of the demon’s favourite drinking houses. Then, all of a sudden, it was Sunday morning and the end of their time together had begun to loom. 

Curled in one of the hotel’s more comfortable sofas, wrapped up in a blanket and half-heartedly reading the newspaper, Aziraphale felt very tempted to throw caution to the wind and beg his friend for more time - ask him to postpone his duties and spend another week locked away from the world. Neither of them was due to report in anytime soon, after all. Neither of them had time sensitive matters to attend to. (The angel had one or two things he really should be doing, back at the bookshop, but he could easily convince himself that they could wait until next week). 

Even a few days would do, he thought, listening to Crowley bathing in the adjoining room. Even just one day. That would make him happy - or not happy, per se, but glad to know that tonight was not their last night together. 

Resting his cheek against the back of the chair, Aziraphale looked over to the doorway between the two rooms. Crowley had left the door just far enough ajar to see the bottom half of his large copper bathtub. One of the demon’s long legs was resting on the edge, his other leg crossed over it. The tips of his toes were bouncing lazily, as if tapping along to a beat that the angel could not hear. 

His friend was a funny creature, Aziraphale thought. He might not bother much with physical pleasures such as eating, but he took a great deal of joy in bathing and grooming. They were comforts that the angel had rarely thought of before these days spent in seclusion together, but he was beginning to appreciate them now. Certainly, bathing was a good thing. Even if mainly for the view. 

Tilting his head back, the angel unveiled a little more of the scene, a little bit more demon shin and copper tub. He could not see far enough to catch a glimpse of Crowley’s face, however. The top of the tub remained resolutely out of view behind the half closed door. 

Feeling a little self indulgent, Aziraphale waved two fingers and the door drifted open another few inches. Crowley did not notice. He was busy running hands over his head, rinsing it free of soap. His hair - currently short down the sides and long over the top, as was the fashion - was plastered over his face. As it was most frequently slicked back and under a hat, these days, the angel took a moment to appreciate the colour of it before letting his eyes travel on down the back of the demon’s long neck, then to the notch of his spine, then to the sharp edge of his collarbones and on out, to the angular muscle of his shoulders. 

Crowley was rather slender, at the moment. A little more delicate than he had been these last few years, when fashions had flattered bulk. It was one of the angel’s favourite forms. (Not that he was particularly inclined to prefer the demon one way or the other - this just had the advantage of being the first. It was how Crowley had looked, back when they had been young creatures together, in the garden). 

Giving his head a rough rub, Aziraphale’s friend leant back against the copper side of the tub and seemed to notice that he was being watched. Turning his head, he raised a dark eyebrow, meeting the angel’s eyes across the hallway. 

“Didn’t realise you enjoyed this as a spectator sport,” he called out. “I would have left the door open wider.”

Aziraphale smiled. 

The demon almost certainly knew that he enjoyed spectating. It was undoubtedly why he had left the door open at all. Crowley liked showing off. 

“Is the water nice?” He called back through.

“Yep. Still hot.” The demon stretched, pushing his legs further over the side of the bath. The angel could see his toes spread apart, the delicate arch of his foot curving up. Sliding one arm down from where it had been lying on the edge of the tub, Crowley’s hand disappeared beneath the water - most likely towards his groin. The angel recognised the little smirk his friend got, right in the corner of his mouth. He recognised the pointed look in his eye, as well. “You could come join me, if you liked?” Crowley suggested, laying his head back against the side of the tub, so that Aziraphale could admire the long slender line of his neck. “Test it out.”

“No, I think I’ll stay here, thank you.” he smiled. “Don’t fancy getting wet.”

“Suit yourself.” 

The demon didn’t look too disappointed. Aziraphale’s reply had been a challenge, not a refusal, and Crowley had read it as such. A little, wordless invitation to show off a bit more. 

They watched one another, across the space, the angel admiring the little flush that crept up over the rise of his friend’s cheeks and the way that he swallowed a few times as his breaths hitched faster. The little muscles at the top of his shoulders twitched as his hand turned beneath the water. Aziraphale knew exactly what that hand would be doing. He had felt that hand work himself, many times. Crowley was very good with his hands. 

“Sure you won’t come in?” Crowley asked, voice a bit lower, now. 

“Yes. You could always come over here, though,” the angel suggested.

Crowley gave a soft little noise, at the back of his throat. 

“I suppose…”

“You’ll get all pruney if you stay in there, anyway.”

“I will?”

“Probably. Do demons not prune in water?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever noticed.”

“Come over here and I’ll check for you.”

The demon rested his cheek against the edge of the tub. A strange little expression played over his face - the expression he wore, sometimes, when he was thinking about their power dynamic. 

_You destroy me. Why do I let you destroy me?_

He honestly didn’t know, Aziraphale thought. That is, Crowley knew fine well what his feelings meant - he knew what love was - but Crowley lived his life according to a tight set of controls. He lived within well thought-out boundaries. His body was always well groomed. His living quarters were always scrupulously clean. His working life was perfectly planned out and segmented from his personal one. And he clearly had no idea why he let emotion run riot over this part of his existence. 

It seemed a constant struggle for him, to equate it all. He didn’t like the loss of control - but he liked that moment where control gave way to submission and abandon. And Aziraphale liked leading him there. 

“Come over,” the angel beckoned again, with just a hint of a smile. 

Giving a low groan, Crowley lifted his hand from where he had been stroking himself and used it to pull himself more upright. Then, causing bathwater to slosh over the sides of the tub, he stood up. 

Water ran off him in rivulets, following the lines of his body. Down over slender sides, over the shadows of ribs, around the soft hint of flesh and muscle, into the dark creases of legs, across flushed pale skin. He was beautiful, thought the angel, admiringly. He was always so beautiful. 

Reaching down to a nearby chair, the demon seized a towel and ran it over his head and neck. He did a rough job of drying his hair, but didn’t bother with the rest of himself - just stepped neatly out of the bath and began to pad slowly across the hall, then the room, towards the angel, leaving wet footprints on the hardwood. 

Arriving at the side of the sofa, he ran the towel once more over his head and chest. Then, he dropped it on the floor and stood, damp and almost fully erect, belly rising and falling in time with his breaths, looking down at Aziraphale. 

He lifted his hands out to the side, in presentation. 

“So. What are you going to do with me, now you have me in your thrall, angel?” He asked, and there was challenge in his voice, now, because he was frustrated - frustrated with the way he wanted to come when called, and submit when pressed. Because Crowley did not do rules well, on the whole, and he certainly did not submit. It was why he often found himself at odds with his superiors. “Hm?” 

“Well, I did say that I would check your skin.” Aziraphale reached up, brushing the tips of his fingers just below Crowley’s navel. The demon’s abdomen twitched, reflexively, as did his cock. 

“Oi-,” 

Making an indignant noise, Crowley batted his hand away and stepped forwards. Shoving a knee into the space on the edge of the sofa, he knelt up and swung his leg over to straddle the angel, resting one hand on the back of the cushions, the other on Aziraphale’s chest. He was very warm and very wet. The angel could feel him dripping onto the cotton of his trousers. It would take a miracle to clean them up, after this, but Aziraphale suspected there might be other miracles needed, anyway, so he dashed that rule off as a lost cause once again. 

Tilting his head back, he looked up at his friend.

“What do you make of my skin, then?” Crowley asked. 

“Oh, it seems quite fine.” The angel lifted his hand to the demon’s side, thumb pressing in. “No pruning. You are a bit damp, though.”

“Damp?”

“Yes.”

Their eyes were locked together - green-blue-hazel on gold. The angel picked out the darker flecks of Crowley’s irises and tried to count them, but he lost himself as the demon slipped his legs a bit wider, and sat down in his lap. 

“So I’m damp, hard, and entirely at your mercy,” his lover hissed, showing just a hint of curled lip. “Isn’t that just the trifecta of ways in which you like me, Aziraphale… what are the chances.” 

The tiniest hint of a flush crept across the angel’s cheeks, because the frustration in his friend’s voice was so very potent. Crowley found it deeply irritating that he could make him feel this way - and he was right about Aziraphale’s gentle engineering of the situation, too. This had all been arranged for the angel’s optimal enjoyment. He had been the one to suggest the bath, to watch and tease. It had been he who had called Crowley over and looked at him with hunger. And the demon had not refused because he could never refuse him for long. 

“I like you very much this way,” Aziraphale answered his friend, a little shyly. 

“Heh-,” Crowley grunted. He watched the angel for a few moments longer, then gave a little sigh. “You know, most people who summon a demon have more intention than just staring at it, when it arrives.” He spread his legs a little wider, tilting his hips forwards so that he could press his blood-hot cock against one of the angel’s thighs. 

“And what do you normally do for them?” Aziraphale asked, feeling dizzy and a bit bold. 

“Oh…” Crowley widened his eyes, slightly. “Demonic things.” 

“Demonic things?”

“Yeah.” 

“Such as?” 

His demon raised an eyebrow. 

This was new. They didn’t do this. They didn’t bring work into it, they didn’t bring what they were into it. They were always just them, before. They never talked about this. But Crowley was harder than ever against him and Aziraphale couldn’t help but push a little. 

“What do I get, for summoning a demon?” He asked, voice low, fingernails pressed into Crowley’s thighs.

Crowley’s chin tilted back. He looked flustered but nonetheless interested. 

“Well, a bit of chaos, I suppose,” he answered, turning his hips and giving Aziraphale’s shoulder a gentle shove, pushing him back against the cushions. Leaning over him, Crowley bit at his own lip. His hair hung in wet waves, away from his forehead. “A bit of temptation.”

“What sort of temptation?” 

“Not this kind,” the demon admitted, and there was something just a little shy about his voice, for a moment. “This kind does not belong to my masters.” 

It warmed the angel, to hear him clear his throat, afterwards. 

“No,” he admitted back. “Nor mine.”

“Good.” 

They watched one another for a long moment, then Crowley leant down to lie flat on top of him, belly against belly, cock pressed in between. He gave a half sigh, and leant his weight onto his arms, sliding himself against the angel. 

Despite feeling that his shirt was a little hard done by in all of this, there was something strangely exciting about their disparity of dress. Sex was funny, like that, Aziraphale thought. As soon as the hormones kicked in, all the oddness of their swelling, leaking, aching mortal bodies felt suddenly enticing, rather than vaguely uninteresting. 

He wrapped his hands over the demon’s lower back, pressing fingertips into the dimples on either side of Crowley’s spine, holding him close. 

“What sort of chaos would you unleash on the world for me, then?” He murmured into Crowley’s cheek, feeling the demon’s hair drip onto his neck. 

“Mm.” His friend tilted his hips again, skin sliding on cotton. “Maybe a spot of misdirection around that silly bookshop. Stop thieves coming in the night to rob you?” 

“Oh, I don’t mind them dropping in, occasionally,” the angel mused. “They do always leave feeling a deep sense of shame about their choices, and resolving to change their ways.” 

“Funny that.” 

“Mm.” 

“Must be something about the place.” 

“Must be. What else can you offer, instead?” 

The demon pressed his face into the angel's shoulder. “How about a curse on that man who keeps pigeons on the roof opposite you? The ones that croon early in the morning and shit all over your windows.” 

“Oh, they’re not so bad. Keeps the customers at bay, at least.” 

“Could do a pigeon plague?” 

“Oh, no thank you!” The angel shuddered. “The smell would be intolerable. Remember that summer where they put poison in the sewers to try and cull the rat population? You couldn’t breathe except through a handkerchief for weeks.” 

“Yeah, that was grim,” the demon admitted, drawing his head back to look down at the angel. “Okay. What about a spell to keep the rain away from that little route you like, around the park?”

“All the lovely plants would die!”

“The plants would live,” the demon gave an impatient little wriggle. “I could _make it so_.”

“It would disturb the ambience of the place terribly, Crowley.”

Crowley sighed. 

“You know, this really is a half-assed attempt at a summons, angel. People usually have far more diabolical requests.”

Aziraphale looked up at his friend, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, really? Do tell me - what is the most diabolical thing you’ve been summoned to carry out?”

“Well,” the demon blushed slightly and stopped pressing his hips down. He cleared his throat. “You know… evil things.”

“What things, precisely?”

“Eh…” Crowley looked around himself, as if searching for inspiration. “Well, once I cursed a woman’s unfaithful husband with ten years of erectile dysfunction.”

“Sounds rather more like comeuppance than occult activity.”

“All right, well… there was an accountant in Hertford who I made quack like a duck every time he heard the word ‘dividends’. He was laughed right out of practice.”

“How absolutely _horrific_ of you.”

“It was, actually,” Crowley huffed. “Oh - and there was that time I rearranged all the road signs around Oxford Circus, last year. That caused hours of chaos.”

“Was that the morning that you were late to lunch because of traffic, by any chance?”

“It was a purposelessly chaotic and evil act,” the demon retorted, avoiding the question.

“Of course it was.”

“I do plenty of evil things, angel,” he bristled. “Plenty. But I’m hardly going to tell you all about it now, am I? You’d get all high and mighty about it, and I can’t cope with that when I’m naked...”

“Of course,” Aziraphale soothed. “That makes perfect sense.” Above him, Crowley hissed and began to try and wriggle free, sensing a tease, but the angel redoubled the grip on his hips. “Crowley?”

The demon looked down. 

Aziraphale looked back up, very sincerely. 

“I’m starting to suspect that you might be a bit of a nice demon.”

Giving a growl of disgust, Crowley resumed his attempts at escape, pivoting away and beginning to crawl towards the far end of the sofa. Aziraphale had always been the stronger of the two, however. 

Sitting up, he seized his friend by the crease of the hip and pulled him back. Then he crawled over the demon, chuckling as Crowley realised he was not going to get away and settled for going limp, instead - belly down and face turned away into the sofa, sulking. 

_Sweet, sweet boy._

Leaning in, the angel slid one hand up to pin his right wrist against the cushions, stroking his other hand very lightly down the demon’s side. 

“I’m sure you’re still absolutely diabolical, my dear.” 

“Oh, fuck off, won’t you?” 

It wasn’t a proper ‘fuck off’, though. It wasn’t anywhere close. Aziraphale knew Crowley well enough to be able to tell the difference. 

“A true paragon of evil,” the angel soothed, breathing in the scent of the demon’s skin, mixed with that of the soap from his recent bath. “I’m sure humans tremble at the sight of you.”

“They do, actually, you little shit.”

Stifling a laugh against the back of his friend’s neck, Aziraphale pressed closer, insinuating the tips of his fingers under the side of one sharp hip. 

“I just think that sometimes, perhaps, you’re a little nice, too.”

“I am fucking not!”

“Terrible, evil, cruel, sweet thing…”

Crowley hissed and pushed back against the angel with his shoulders, but he was far slighter than Aziraphale and not really trying that hard. He hadn’t even used his legs to try and gain leverage. In fact, all the movement really accomplished was to allow the angel space to slip a hand in between the demon and the cushions and palm his cock gently against his belly. 

“Sweet thing,” he whispered, pressing kisses against the back of his friend’s shoulders. 

“Nh-,” 

“Sweet demon.”

“You are such a bastard…”

“Kind boy-.

“I am not kind! I’m-,” But what Crowley thought he was Aziraphale never found out because, as the angel curled his fingers around the hot, velvet shaft of his cock, the demon gave a groan and stopped talking. “Ugh.” He turned his face, pressing his mouth into the side of the angel’s free hand, instead. 

Aziraphale could feel the heat from his friend’s parted lips as he began to breathe heavily. The sensation was dizzying. It caused his body to tighten in anticipation. Crowley could be made to drool a little, if rubbed just right. Aziraphale knew that from past experience. He could make the demon whine, too. He liked to hear him whine. 

“Beautiful boy,” he murmured against Crowley's back - and the tease was slipping from the conversation, now, because Crowley really was beautiful, pinned beneath him, shoulder blades jutting back from his ribcage and the muscles of his back drawn and tense. Foot pressed against Aziraphale’s, he was resisting only just enough to be allowed to stay with plausible deniability - basking in the angel’s praise. He was stunning. “Is this okay, beautiful?” the angel whispered, reverently, against the back of him. 

“Yeah…”

“Sweet, clever boy.”

“Mm-, hey! M’not!”

“But you are, my dear. You are so good.” 

“Good is-… shit, Aziraphale… Good is just a-, ah!” The tendons at the back of the demon’s leg tightened, digging into the angel’s thigh as he nudged his friend forwards, making a bit more space for his hand. “It’s… ah-,” Crowley whined, his concentration clearly beginning to fracture. His free hand shot back to grab Aziraphale’s forearm. His back arched, hips pushing forwards. “Oh… sh-hit-!”

And that was the little motion that always caused him to lose control, Aziraphale thought, with a satisfied smile. A little roll around the tip and then a few strokes where he avoided it entirely. Rinse and repeat, and watch his demon fall apart. 

“Shit. _Angel_ …”

He sped up, Crowley’s fingernails digging deeper. It stung, but not nearly enough to ask him to stop. Resting his mouth against the demon’s back, Aziraphale whispered soft words against his skin, feeling his friend whimper and shudder. 

“You’re clever, and kind, and lovely.” He kissed the nape of his neck. “You’re brave, and beautiful, and you do what you do so very wonderfully.” Pressing his forehead in, he tried to ignore the growing ache in his own body. This was about Crowley. “You’re so good…” 

“Nnn-hng.”

“You’re so good at what you do, Crowley.”

“Fuck…”

“You’re the very best thing, my dear, the very best.”

“Oh, ssshit…oh, shit, shit fuck-,” the demon gave a short, harsh noise, then a whimper. 

“Are you going to come for me, sweet boy?” Aziraphale whispered, against him, but the demon already was. Mouth open against his arm, shoulders pressed back, he went momentarily silent and then let forth such a disgusting stream of profanities that Aziraphale laughed out loud. “There you are, beautiful,” he murmured, as Crowley squirmed underneath him, fingernails scraping his skin, cock hot and very wet in his hand. “So beautiful...”

Shuddering, the demon went limp from the head down. His fist loosened around the fabric of the sofa. Then his chest fell forwards. Then his hips dropped, too, and his foot slipped free from Aziraphale’s. 

“Ugh-,” He was panting erratically, mouth very wet. “Fucking… _fuck_.” He angled his hips briefly, pushing into the angel’s slick grip, then relaxed once more. “Fuck, angel. That was… That was... I-,”

“Shhh,” Aziraphale laughed against him. “It’s okay, darling. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

“Yeah… yeah.” Crowley panted for a few seconds, looking helplessly around. “S’kinky though.”

Aziraphale laughed harder. 

“Fuck…” the demon gave a little shiver. “I-, _ugh._ ”

Leaning in, the angel buried his face in the back of his friend’s neck, pressing a kiss against the damp skin there. Crowley’s barriers, as they so often did these days, had slipped down so that they were both bathing in his elation. It was lovely. Perfect. 

“You’re okay, dear...” 

“Nnng’yeah… yeah.”

“Just breathe.”

“Uh huh…”

“Breathe.” 

“Yeah. Ng‘kay… Fuck, I love you.”

“Shhh…”

“Kay…”

Aziraphale only registered what Crowley had said a full ten seconds after he had already said it - for which he was very grateful. It muffled the reaction. The way his body froze and his thoughts ground to a halt. 

Chin resting against the demon’s back, Aziraphale stared into the pattern of the sofa and tried to process the words - his hand still curled around his friend’s slowly softening cock, feeling the wet heat of his ejaculate cool. 

Truth be told, he could have suddenly done with someone reminding _him_ to breathe, in that moment. The space around his chest suddenly felt incredibly tight. Though he already knew - though he had known for a very long time - he still found it completely overwhelming to hear Crowley voice the sentiment out loud. Those words, all three of which he had heard the demon say independently, sent a shockwave through him, when placed together. 

_I love you._

He had not been expecting this today. He was not equipped to deal with this today. 

Just breathe, he told himself, forcing air into his lungs - forcing his heart not to burst out of his chest. Just breathe. Take a moment. You’re okay. 

Reflexively, he tilted his head forwards and kissed the back of Crowley’s shoulder, as he so often did after their coupling. A comfort to himself, as much as anything.

“Hnng.” Below the angel, Crowley breathed out, heavily, lifting a hand to swipe the hair from his forehead, then dangle over the edge of the sofa. “That was a good one.”

“Evidently.”

“Mmm.” 

The hum reverberated delightfully against Aziraphale's belly. 

(His heartbeat thundered, terrifyingly, in his chest).

It took a full minute for Crowley to come back to himself. Lost in his thoughts, it was only when the demon’s back tensed and he tried to shift a hip, that Aziraphale realised their position might be growing uncomfortable. Managing to still his internal panic long enough to orientate his limbs, the angel rolled over to one side, allowing Crowley to wriggle out from underneath him. 

As they arranged themselves on the sofa, Aziraphale avoided the furtive glances Crowley was throwing in his direction. He shouldn’t, he thought, shuffling down into the cushions. His friend would know that something was wrong, if he kept this up. They were never bashful in the aftermath, anymore. They’d been doing this for far too long, now. More than nine months if you added up the days end to end. More than three hundred years if you counted all of the time in between, (which Aziraphale did not, because those years belonged to Heaven in the same way that those nine months belonged to him and Crowley). 

Gathering himself, the angel forced his attention onto something practical - pulling the blanket he had been wrapped in, earlier, up off the floor to drape over the demon. He needed to get a grip, he told himself, as he tucked the edge around Crowley’s side, otherwise this would become a conversation - and he wasn’t ready for that, yet. He needed time to think things through, first. 

Eventually, when he could avoid looking up no longer, Aziraphale raised his eyes to the demon. 

He found Crowley already watching him, carefully. 

“Come back down?” He asked the demon, just a little too much lightness in his voice. 

“Yup.” His friend swallowed, then made a complicated little expression that was half frown and half smile. It gave him a dimple in one cheek and a crease between his brows. “Heh.” He reached down, touching the side of Aziraphale’s forearm, where his mouth had rested. The soft hair there was matted with saliva and marked by the faintest impression of teeth. “Sorry about that,” he blustered - and it was a bluster, quite unlike anything Aziraphale had heard from him before. It lacked all of his usual self assurance - even the fake kind. “I, uh… didn’t mean to.” 

“It’s okay,” Aziraphale replied, suspecting very strongly that they were not talking about his arm. 

“Always a bit of a mess when you pin me down,” Crowley swallowed. “Can never just keep my damned mouth shut.” 

The little self deprecating comment hung in the air, tugging at Aziraphale in ways he really didn’t need to be feeling right now. Sweet, sweet boy, he thought, watching Crowley continue to determinedly not meet his eye. He really hadn’t meant to say it. He was usually so very good at all of this. 

Deep down, the angel knew that this would change them. They could not continue as they had been. They could no longer ignore that they were growing entirely too close. But he pushed the thought momentarily away. He needed to think before he could formulate thoughts, never mind words. He needed a moment or ten. He didn’t like it when things moved too fast. 

“You were perfect,” he told Crowley softly. 

Crowley looked quickly up, expression sheepish but strangely hopeful. 

“Yeah?”

“You always are.”

“Oh. Right.” His cheeks flushed slightly. “Okay, then.”

Aziraphale had meant to say something more, something along the lines of ‘ _please just be careful next time_ ’ or ‘ _do_ _try and keep your head, you know the rules_ ’, but he could not do it. He could not bear to scrub any of the lightness from his friend’s eyes. 

Oh, this was cruel, he thought, watching the demon slowly relax, leaning back against the sofa and looking around the room - relief painting his features softer than they had been, before. This was so cruel. He should not give Crowley hope where there was none. It was the action of a coward. He was being such a terrible, terrible coward. 

Across from him, Crowley made some comment on the time and turned his head to gaze out the window, making a rough estimate of the hour based on the height of the sun - (something he had always been very good at in the days before clocks). Aziraphale watched him, feeling the great weight of years that had passed around them; feeling all of his memories, all of the lives that he had lived, and the things he had experienced and how it was all tied to the creature beside him. 

How long had he loved Crowley, he wondered? In general terms, for thousands of years. And in the way that he considered him, now? In the way that he was definitely never meant to consider him…? He did not know, exactly. 

He could not pinpoint the exact moment, during the last few hundred years, where lust and love had come together with friendship, and respect, and he had realised that - if he considered the demon to be anything that had a human name - then it would be his mate. Friend had always seemed an opt-in concept, infatuation a bit of his own choice, but mate felt strangely less so. It felt somewhat fated, balanced, as if they were meant to be counterparts - which, of course they were, albeit in a different manner. 

In the darkest hours of the early morning, the angel had sometimes wondered if it was not because they were opposites that they fit so well - that, perhaps, there was meaning in their mirroring of one another. But he knew that really couldn’t be. Things did not exist in nature without a purpose and there was no purpose in Heaven or Hell for something like him and Crowley. There was no place for them, no space where it would be safe for them to express how they felt, or to be, or to explore. They could never hope to build or create together. They could never live unafraid of retribution. 

There was no future, Aziraphale thought, staring at the demon’s pink mouth as he chatted away - as he held himself lighter than he had done in years, because he had finally voiced (however unintentionally) what had been growing in him for millennia. 

_Sweet, sweet boy._

How could there be no future for something like Crowley? How was that possible? Why had God made this so hard, thought the angel, swallowing down his churning emotions. 

“Hey-,” 

He looked up from Crowley’s mouth and found the demon frowning at him. 

“Hm?”

“Were you even remotely listening to me?” 

Aziraphale blushed. 

“No. I'm sorry, dear boy. I was miles away.”

“Right.” There was an awkward little moment where Crowley’s eyes darted between his own. The demon knew exactly what he was doing, miles away. He knew that Aziraphale would be over analysing and drowning in panic. Thankfully, he also knew what the angel needed, to deal with said panic. “Well, I was saying I was going to pop down the road to those dining rooms where the young Italian chap used to work… see if I can’t find some coffee. Do you want me to fetch you some?” He tilted his head, half dried waves of red hair falling gracefully over one half of his forehead. He looked softer with it un-styled. A little young. His eyes, a little big. “Coffee, angel?” He prompted.

“Yes.” Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I would, thanks.” 

“Okay…” 

Crowley stared at him for a long moment, then opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Then he cleared his throat and stood up from the sofa, tossing the blanket gently over the arm of it. He stood, naked and a bit vulnerable, before the angel. Crowley had never been shy about his body, Aziraphale thought. It was the way his soul was showing which was making him nervous, now. 

“I’ll be back in half an hour, then. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll, eh… you’ll still be here when I get back, right?”

For a moment, Aziraphale was not sure, then he nodded. “Of course,” he told the demon. The time was gone when they could slip out on one another, avoiding the awkward parts of the conversation. They had come too far for that. 

“Okay.”

The demon took a few steps backwards then lifted both hands and did a complicated little movement which meant he was suddenly fully clothed. 

Pretending to look impressed with himself for the angel’s benefit, and running one hand through his hair to shove it roughly into position, Crowley turned on his heel and headed out through the door at the far end of the room, locking it after him with a tap of the hand. 

Aziraphale watched him go, feeling his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. 

Half an hour was not nearly long enough to get to the bottom of how he was feeling about all of this. 

.


	11. 1850 CE, London II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley returns from fetching coffee. Aziraphale has a conversation he really doesn't want to have. Feels are had by all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: break up

**1850 CE, London**

**Part II**

.

Half an hour had not been nearly long enough to get to the bottom of how he was feeling. Indeed, Aziraphale had spent the first ten minutes of it completely unable to think anything useful at all. He had sat with his head in his hands for a while, then tried to clear his mind by cleaning up the little patch on the sofa where he and his lover - his _lover_ \- had made their mess. Then, he had spent the next five minutes pacing, muttering ‘fuck’ in a variety of languages. Then he had forced his mind to a bit of thinking.

Thinking was generally unproductive.

The first conclusion Aziraphale came to was that he was a flaming idiot. The second was that he was a coward, a terrible angel, and that Crowley did not deserve any of this. The third - that he had absolutely no idea what to do next. There was nothing that came to mind that would make their situation any better, he realised, as he got back to his feet and resumed pacing around the hotel suite. There was no clever answer. No loophole that would make it all okay again. This was a dead end, in terms of reasoning. And, somehow, that thought was calming.

There wasn't a right answer, Aziraphale realised, forcing his feet to carry him over to the window - sliding it open to let some cooler air outside. This was a difficult situation. He was just going to have to accept that it was going to get worse before it got better. He and Crowley were going to have to talk, he thought, with a squeeze of painful resignation. They were going to have to discuss realities that they had been avoiding for thousands of years. They were going to disagree. They were probably going to argue. It was going to be awful.

Turning from the window, Aziraphale let his feet carry him once more around the room. He arranged arranged a few cushions and vanished Crowley's bathwater. Then, he tentatively made his way back to the armchair and lowered himself down. 

He needed to remain calm, Aziraphale thought, swallowing. He needed to state his case clearly and concisely. He needed to make Crowley understand. 

_Crowley._

_Crowley, Crowley, Crowley._

Resting his head in his hands, the angel briefly wondered whether the demon was going through his own internal turmoil, out on the streets. Somehow, he doubted it. Crowley was a reactive creature at heart. When something happened, he lashed out, or threw a tantrum, or shouted at the sky. He was a creature of big gestures and impulsive moments, whereas Aziraphale was the sort of being who internalised dreadfully and spent weeks thinking about how to parse a single sentence. 

With every life change, Aziraphale had to take a moment (or two moments, or two days) to evaluate how he felt - and what he thought about what he felt, and whether he had the words to describe it all efficiently. He liked to be prepared, should he be challenged on what was going on inside of him. He didn't like to feel on the back foot. He liked to have a defence in place.

There were layers to his over-analysis, see, and they took a good deal of time to work through. Something as complex as himself and Crowley was going to take significantly longer than half an hour. 

Sitting up and opening his eyes, Aziraphale forced his body to take a series of slow breaths. 

Okay.

Falling was a good place to start, he decided, if he was going to consider all of the possible outcomes of this situation. It was something he had given a great deal of thought over the years that he and Crowley had spent fucking in secret spots around the globe.

_(Oh why in Heaven's name did his cheeks heat to think of that now, he wondered. He had pinned his friend against the sofa and jerked him off while whispering praise against his neck just twenty minutes ago. How could he possibly be squeamish about the word ‘fucking’? He was utterly ridiculous)..._

Aziraphale assumed that angels could still fall from grace. He had known none personally, of course. As a Principality, he had been created after the great war - made to guard humanity and Eden. 'The Fall' was rather an abstract concept to new angels like Aziraphale. He had never been sure where the line was between what they were allowed to question and what would end in wings being ripped asunder and being thrown into the boiling pits. He only knew what the older angels had told him. And what he had experienced. 

He knew that being with Crowley, physically, could not lead him to Fall. As to what he felt emotionally - well, Aziraphale had been in love with the demon for many years and not had his wings ripped off yet - so that, in itself, was not enough either. Still, there had to be some point at which their association would tip him over the edge. There must be some point where allegiance shifted far enough away from the divine. 

Claiming Crowley as a partner would ostracise him from Heaven and lead to their retribution, yes, but what would it do in terms of his soul? It was not a renouncement of his beliefs, Aziraphale thought. But were his beliefs really worthy of his God, if he was willing to align himself with someone who had been ripped from all that was light? Probably not. 

So, for multiple reasons, he could never claim his friend as a partner - even if that was definitely what Crowley wanted, which Aziraphale didn’t have the time or strength to go into, right now. Could they continue as they had been, then, up until this point? 

The answer to that felt fairly obvious. 

They had entered into this arrangement as a comfort. It had been an earthly response to an earthly need. The benefits of being able to take pleasure from one another and feel a little happier in themselves had outweighed the ache of knowing that it would never amount to anything more. But that was changing for both of them. 

In the moments that Crowley’s emotional barriers had lowered, Aziraphale had felt his need growing. The demon wanted what the angel wanted - and that was no longer just to seek physical pleasure, or be friends, or counterparts, or very, very friendly enemies. It was no longer enough for either of them to be an unnamed ‘everything’, or ‘incredibly important to one another’. It was no longer enough for them to love from a distance. They both wanted a stake in a future. They wanted acknowledgement, and mutual belonging, and a life together. And those were things they absolutely could not have. 

These feelings weren’t going to go away, Aziraphale thought. They had only grown stronger in the short time they had spent together. Prolonging their parting, then, was pointless and cruel - doubly so if they were both not on the same page about the possibility of a future. It had to end. 

They were done, the angel thought, staring hopelessly at the sofa across from him. They were over and they had barely begun. 

.

Forty-five minutes had passed before Crowley returned to the hotel room, clutching a small bag over one shoulder and a pot with the lid tied firmly shut in his hands. Pushing his way through the doorway, he paused on the threshold looking around, appearing a little anxious until his eyes found Aziraphale still sitting in his chair.

"Hi." 

Pulling on an air of practiced nonchalance, Crowley dropped his glasses on a nearby chair and slouched over to the long table by the window, setting the spoils of his journey down upon it. 

“I found cake,” he offered, giving Aziraphale a few moments to compose himself before throwing a quick glance over, to test the waters. “And coffee. And charcuterie, with olives and cheese." He shot the angel a little grin. "And to think I’ve been calling the English Philistines…”

“Bit of a slur on Philistines,” the angel offered, weakly, in return. 

It was one of their little pieces. A repeat they performed, time and time again. In-jokes and soft little moments, Aziraphale thought, with a swallow. It was all going to be so hard to give up. But surely they did not have to give up everything? Crowley had once said that they could stop anytime - that they could go back to how things were with no hard feelings.

Steeling himself, Aziraphale rose from the armchair, walking over to stand beside the table and the demon. 

Crowley continued to fuss over the pot of coffee, fiddling with the string on top. He only looked up as the angel drew level, meeting Aziraphale’s eyes with the sort of assertiveness that hid insecurity. 

“I suppose we have to talk."

Aziraphale noticed a slight waver in his voice, but only because he knew Crowley so well. 

Nodding, the angel moved to stand directly in front of his friend, tilting his head back slightly. The difference between their heights did not vary between the demon’s different forms. Aziraphale always had to look up to meet his eyes. When they kissed, he had to stretch. Crowley kept him on his toes, Aziraphale thought, warmth curling in his chest. 

“Is this about earlier?” Crowley asked, in a carefully neutral tone. “About what I said?”

“Yes.” 

“Right.” 

They stared at one another. Crowley shuffled his feet. Aziraphale found he could not move a muscle. He did not know how to start. 

“You know… I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” the demon said, eventually. “I mean, at the end of the day, they're just words, aren't they?” 

“They mean something, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. “You know that.”

“Yeah, but it’s not as if it _changes_ anything. It’s not as if saying something out loud makes it more or less true.”

“It’s not just about saying it.” Aziraphale leant against the table. Knowing what he was about to say was costing him everything. He felt physically sick. “It’s just a sign of how things have changed between us.” 

“Nothing has changed between us-”

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

Crowley huffed and looked away. 

Aziraphale gave him a few seconds, then tilted his head to recapture the demon's gaze. 

“We’re not meant for those things,” he said, so softly the words were almost swallowed up by the sounds drifting in through the open window. “We…” Aziraphale sighed. “The things we want from one another, they’re not things we can have.”

“Why not?” Crowley eyed him, expression indignant. “Try me.”

“It’s not about whether or not we’re capable, it’s about-” Aziraphale looked around the room, searching, wishing the universe would manifest something that would make it apparent how utterly hopeless their future was. “Our respective people would banish us, at the very least,” he ventured, eventually, “hunt us down and destroy us as traitors at the worst. Our positions would be untenable. Neither of us would ever be trusted again. We would have no family, no network, no backup.”

“We’d have each other,” Crowley hissed, eyes entirely covered in gold iris, now - all pretence of humanity gone. “Look around yourself, Aziraphale. That’s all we’ve ever had. Where has your 'family' been these last six thousand years?” 

Aziraphale looked away. Crowley was making a valid point, but he was also missing the bigger picture. They had been everything to one another, these past six thousand years, but that did not change the fact that there was no future for them. What did the past matter when there was no future? It was a pipe dream. It was foolishness. It was lunacy. 

“We can make our own family,” the demon pressed, taking half a step forward, dropping his chin so that their eyes were on a level. “We don’t need them. We can make our own side.” He reached a hand out, pressing the tips of long fingers against the angel’s chest. “Our thing.” 

The weak pile of nonsense that was Aziraphale’s heart contracted, harshly.

“We can’t just stop being what we are,” he whispered, the words barely making it to his lips past the echoes of ‘ _our own family_ ’. 

“We don’t have to stop. We just… wouldn’t belong to our masters any more.” 

“What would we even be?” 

“We’d be _us_.” 

“What would we do?” 

“I don’t know. Just live, I suppose. You know...” Crowley gave a little shrug, a half-grimace. “Make lives. Make choices. Freelance a little.” 

“Freelance?” 

“Yeah. Keep the balance for the humans. Do what’s best for the world, for a change, rather than what’s best for someone in management a hundred million light years away. We’ve always cancelled one another out, angel - can’t see much harm in continuing to do so.” Golden eyes danced around Aziraphale's face. “We could find some part of the world and make it our own. That’s what people do, isn’t it?” 

“But we’re not people,” Aziraphale exclaimed. “We’re an angel and a demon… and what about when they come for us? How do we protect ourselves against both Heaven and Hell?” 

“Well, I mean, we could always just lead them together and see if they finish one another off.”

“This isn’t funny, Crowley,” the angel whimpered.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“This is serious!”

“I know it’s bloody serious!” Crowley shouted and, suddenly, all of the softness was sliding away from him. Suddenly, his body was tense and his voice was low and harsh - a creature backed up against the wall, in the dark, bruised and beaten. “Don’t you think I know that?” 

Aziraphale flinched. 

Giving a growl of frustration, Crowley turned on his heel and paced away. He took five steps towards the door then turned on his heel and faced the angel, feet planted defensively. 

“What is it about me that makes you think I’m not taking this seriously?” He spat, across the distance between them. “What the Heaven do I have to do to convince you? Because I always turn up, Aziraphale. I’m there when you need me and I keep my distance when you don’t. I follow the rules - even though you arbitrarily decide where and when we break them.” He jerked his head back, chin lifted aggressively. “It’s not fair, you know. You get to whisper whatever you like against my skin, but if I say one word, you throw it back at me like it’s poison.”

“That’s not true.” 

“It is!” 

“It’s not-.”

“ _Aziraphale_!”

“It-,” the angel stared at his friend, at his pale, desperate face. “I…”

In reality, it was true and it wasn’t fair. Aziraphale had never thought about it that way, but all the things he whispered against the demon were, indeed, the things that he loved. That was what it meant, really, when he teased Crowley and stroked him, and whispered little praises against him - when he kissed the back of his shoulder, or the side of his neck, or thanked him in the aftermath of their coupling. It was love. He’d been whispering love for far longer than Crowley had. Not using the exact words should not exculpate him. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, feeling a bit shocked at the realisation. “I never meant to do that to you. I really didn’t.” 

Crowley watched him for a long moment, lip curled back far enough to show teeth, then he let out a frustrated little noise and shook his head. 

Pacing back over, he came to a halt just out of the angel’s reach, running both his hands over his face. 

“Satan’s sake...” 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale mumbled, again. 

“Oh, don’t. Just forget about it. It’s fine.”

“It's not fine.” Aziraphale could feel his throat growing tight, because this was the crux of the conversation. This was where the knife went in. “We can’t go back from this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Crowley sighed and ran his hands distractedly through his hair - still wavy from his bath. Lowering long fingers, he looked around at the food on the table. All of his previous anger seemed to have vented out of him. “Listen, I’m sorry for bitching,” he grumbled. “I know I break the rules, too. We both do.” He sighed, then looked back down at the angel, expression softer. “We can pretend this didn’t happen if you want? We’re good at pretending.” 

“We can’t pretend anymore, Crowley...” 

“Course we can. Just leave it for now. Nothing else has to happen unless you want it to. This is fine. This is enough.”

“It’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

"It's not fine."

“Come on, let’s just sit down and take a minute - cool off. We can drink the coffee and bad-mouth whoever brewed it... talk about this later.”

“It’s over, Crowley,” Aziraphale blurted. 

A few seconds passed in stunned silence. 

The demon blinked. 

“What?” 

“It’s over,” Aziraphale repeated, feeling the words rise like bile into his mouth. “Whatever this is, it’s over. It's through.”

Crowley stared at him, the surprise on his face complete. All of the simmering frustration seemed to have been drained out of him in one go. He had even stopped fidgeting. He just stood, stock still, staring at Aziraphale with slightly raised eyebrows. 

“Wh…what do you mean?”

“We need to stop,” Aziraphale repeated, once more. _Had Crowley really not seen this coming?_

“This conversation?”

“No, this. _Us_. All the sneaking around, and helping one another, and The Arrangement, and the favours, and the touching, and the sex." Aziraphale let out a shuddering breath. "All the things we say to one another that we really shouldn't. All of it. All of it has to stop.” 

Crowley continued to watch him, mouth slightly open. There was a very long moment, then he gave a very soft -

_“Oh.”_

A few moments passed in truly awful silence. 

Aziraphale swallowed. 

“Surely, you saw where this conversation was going?” 

“Uhh… no, actually.” Crowley blinked. He took a step backwards, then moved his weight from one hip to the other sort of experimentally. He looked dazed, as if someone had just hit him over the head. “I thought… just thought, you know, we were talking. Like we do. We do the same thing every time, you know...” Half of his mouth twitched - a failed attempt at a smile. “You complain about the risks and we argue, but then I talk you down and we move forwards. It’s… it’s what we do.” He swallowed. “It’s what we’ve always done.” 

Aziraphale felt his stomach clench inside of him. How could this have gone so wrong? Had Crowley really thought that this might lead them in the opposite direction? Had he really thought they could build from this? 

The angel cut his thoughts off short, shaking his head. 

“That’s not what this is,” he told his friend, softly. 

“Right…”

“I’m sorry.” 

There was a long silence. Then Crowley cleared his throat. 

“So, uh... just to get this straight.” His voice was strangely flat. “You want to end whatever this is and go back to what we were before?” 

“It's not about want,” Aziraphale whispered, “but yes. I think we need to.” 

“Right.” The demon turned his head, eyes traveling dazedly around the room as if looking for some way out or some way back. “And this is because of what I said?” 

“Well, not only that, but I think it’s a sign that things have gone too far. You can see that, can’t you?” 

“I don’t know. Suppose I thought it was a good thing."

Crowley cringed at himself. 

Aziraphale frowned. 

“Love." The demon clarified, cringing again. He threw a nervous look over at Aziraphale. The expression in his eyes tight, conflicted. “It’s supposed to be a good thing. Everyone says so. It’s literally the only thing we can all agree on.” His brow furrowed, mouth drawing back into a grimace. “I can’t see why it can’t be good for us, too.” 

“We’re not human, Crowley.”

“I know that,” the demon snapped, looking away.

“It’s not meant for us. We’re not supposed to feel this way.”

“But we already do. And we can’t just erase it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“We can stop it growing, though.” 

Crowley let out a horrible, frustrated sigh.

“Don’t you think the ship has sailed, Aziraphale? We’re already there. You said it yourself, years ago." He curled a lip. "They’ll condemn us for all of it. How we feel is incidental."

“But what it makes us do isn’t."

"Ugh..."

"What it makes us do will get us _caught_.”

“We can control that.”

“I think we’ve proven that we can’t.”

They stared at one another for a very long moment, then the demon swallowed. 

“We could try. I could do better.” 

“I don’t think I could,” Aziraphale whispered, eyes traveling over Crowley's face. For the first time, he could hear the fear in his own voice. He could hear the fear, and desperate longing, and sadness, and he thought Crowley must have been able to hear it too, because the demon’s expression softened slightly. “I’m right on the edge of blurring all of it together," he admitted, quietly. "I’ve pushed the Arrangement more times than I can count. And I know you have too.” He let his eyes travel over his friend’s face, felt the familiar wash of desire flood through him. “We’ve risked discovery just to spend a few hours together, Crowley. We’ve done too many favours, and shared too much information, and gone completely beyond where we ever agreed to go, while helping one another with temptations and blessings. We’re losing grasp of our own reality and the consequences of that are potentially fatal. They’re potentially worse than fatal.” 

“Bollocks…” Crowley breathed, but his heart wasn't really in it. 

“How many times have you burned a safehouse, or a cover, to spend time with me?”

“Oh, I-,” 

“The truth?”

Crowley watched him carefully for a moment, then muttered, “three times.”

“It’s four, for me.” 

“We’ve never gone too far.”

“But one day we will. One day, I’ll ask something of you that I absolutely shouldn’t, and you won’t think about the cost. You won’t think about if you can. You’ll just do it because I asked.”

Gold eyes held onto Aziraphale's with ferocious intensity. 

“Isn’t that the point?” 

They stared at one another. 

The air felt thick, heavy with expectation. Then, Crowley shifted his stance and the quiet of the room fractured.

Emotion filled the air, as loud and present as sound or light. Time seemed to shift as Crowley’s internal walls came crumbling down, bathing the both of them in his love - and it was desperate, desperate love, today. It was love that clawed at Aziraphale, begging to be let inside. He could feel it pressing against him, oppressive and wanting. He could feel the whimpering heat of it, see it reflected in the dark oblongs of Crowley’s pupils, see it in the unnatural pale of his face. 

_See me._

_Choose me._

_Love me._

“…There’s just so much to lose,” the angel whispered. 

“I understand the stakes, Aziraphale.” Crowley's eyes were like fire, burning into him.

“Sometimes, I don’t think you do.” 

“I do.” 

Aziraphale's throat was tight. He had started shaking. Time seemed to have slowed. 

Across a few feet of hotel room - across the enormity of the divide between them - Crowley stood very still, watching him.

“I understand, angel,” the demon murmured, and then he surprised Aziraphale by tilting his head forwards and closing his eyes. It was a motion of defeat, of resignation, and seeing it destroyed the angel.

Crowley was going to stop fighting. It was really over. 

The demon’s eyes dropped to the floor and the sensation of love in the room spread out, becoming more diffuse. As the sharp edge retreated, Aziraphale could taste the greater bulk that lay behind it; the comfort and the safety, the laughter and fondness, the joy and singing tension. Possessive need. Overwhelming trust. Belonging. All new. All familiar. Every last bit of it tasting of Crowley. 

“I understand the stakes better than anyone, Aziraphale,” his demon murmured, softly. “I know what you could lose. I get it, I do…” he shrugged. “I just don’t have anything to offer up as collateral - nothing you'd consider worth losing.” Turning his palms over, he looked down at them. “I only have me. I suppose I thought that…” he flinched. “I dunno…” Closing long fingers over his palms, he let them fall to his sides. “Stupid, really.” 

He looked up. 

They stood opposite one another, the air singing with emotion between them. The desire to close the gap was enormous, but they weren’t allowed that any more, Aziraphale thought. They weren’t allowed to touch, or comfort, or seek one another out anymore when they’d had a bad month, or a bad year, or a bad decade. It was over and it had barely begun. 

They had snatched slightly fewer than three hundred days from the last three hundred years - an infinitesimal time in light of their six thousand year lives on Earth. Proportionally, it worked out as less than a weekend in the life of a fifty year old human. One tiny fragment spent wrapped up in one another, lost in the comfort of being known, and now it was done. 

Never again would they feel the relief of closing the door on the outside world and tumbling into one another. No more would the angel go to collect his post and feel a rush of delight to find a letter from his friend sitting on top, containing an invitation to visit. There would be no veiled illusions to sneaking off to one of their favourite spots after dinner. No little jokes about what an absolutely pointless mess Aziraphale was when the demon pressed him up against a wall. No soft kisses afterwards, or lying across one another, or reading to Crowley while the demon pretended not to enjoy himself, or writing little riddles for him to solve, or watching him bathe, or preen, or sleep.

Those moments did not belong to Aziraphale anymore. They should never have belonged to him in the first place. They had been stolen moments. Glimpses of some other creature’s life. 

The angel swallowed.

The pain burning through him now was mixed with adrenaline. When that died away, later, it would be agony. He could not imagine. Nothing had ever hurt this much before. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Crowley to clamp down on his projected emotions or not. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse, being the one to step away. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the separation. 

“Can I say goodbye?” Crowley asked and the hopelessness in his eyes was so horrible, so absolute, that Aziraphale almost broke down, then and there. 

His throat was too tight to speak. He wanted to apologise again - in words so perfect that his friend would understand. (Though he knew there were no words like that in any language of gods or men). He wanted to run away, so that he could not feel the hurt pouring out of Crowley. He wanted to close the distance between them and hold him forever. He wanted to take it all back, but also to never see the demon again - to shout at him, to cry, to curl up and submit to the pain.

But he didn’t. He didn’t react. He never had. At the very basest level of himself, Aziraphale always responded to emotion in the same manner. He froze. He pushed it back, down, and away. 

Swallowing, he managed to summon a few words.

“I don't think goodbye will work, for us, Crowley. We’ll still see one another around. We work in the same city, with the same people.” The angel eyed his counterpart, picking out the familiar lines around his face. “I know it would be easier if we could give one another space, but I don’t know if that’s a realistic expectation. Things are so connected these days. We’ll end up bumping into one another.”

“I know.” Crowley shifted slightly. “I just meant…”

The angel felt his stomach clench - a strange, physical manifestation of emotional pain that was crippling to experience so acutely for the first time. 

Crowley wanted to say _goodbye_. He wanted them to stay here, tonight. That much was evident in the way he was looking at Aziraphale - in the upswing of possessive, needy love that was filling the room. 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea," Aziraphale whispered. 

“Then don’t do it to be good,” Crowley hissed, voice strained. “Just stay, alright? Just stay…” 

The angel knew he should say no, outright. He knew that, if he stayed, drawing away afterwards would be a thousand times more difficult - but he also appreciated that Crowley had once asked him to give warning before this was over, and he had not done that.

He had not followed his rules and he had not given his friend any warning that this was coming. This whole situation had completely blindsided the demon and to go from being wrapped up on the sofa, together, to being parted for the rest of time, within the space of an hour, seemed like the most grotesque paradox. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t think-”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Crowley assured him.

“I’m not going to change my mind.” 

“I’m not trying to make you!” 

“It will make it so much worse-”

“I _know_!” Crowley gave a low whine, then strode forwards, closing the gap between them and living both hands up to frame Aziraphale's face. “Fuck, I know… I-know-I-know-I-know…” He leant in, pressing his forehead against Aziraphale's. “ _I know you_ , angel.” The consonants were almost indistinguishable from the hiss.

They stood that way for a couple of heartbeats. Then, just as Aziraphale’s hands came up to touch the side of his wrists - just as the angel's body was giving in to the familiarity of the touch - Crowley gave a shaky sigh and pulled away.

Dropping his hands, he stepped back, turning his face to one side.

“Fuck…” 

And the emotion that had been hanging in the air between them suddenly vanished - like the reverberations of one last strike of a piano key. The gateway was closed. That emotional barrier was back in place. All that were left in the room were echoes. 

The angel stood, swaying a little at the separation. 

Exhaling heavily, Crowley turned and staggered over to one of the sofas. Dropping down onto it, he let his face fall into his hands. 

Everything was silent for almost a minute. Then he murmured;

“You should go.” 

“Crowley?”

“Go,” his friend said again, voice impossibly small in the too-large room. “I can’t leave, right now, so it’s going to have to be you.” 

“I-”

“Just go,” he whispered - and the angel would have preferred him to scream, or lash out and throw something. He would have preferred Crowley to cry, or put his hand through a mirror, or stride around the place and curse at things - because that was what he was used to Crowley doing when he was upset. This defeat Aziraphale did not recognise. 

For a horrible long few seconds he just stood there, watching the demon stare into space - watching Crowley's inhuman eyes stay strangely dry, though he’d always been prone to crying. He was not reacting, the angel thought. There was no anger left in him. He was just done. 

“I’m sorry,” the angel whispered, one last time. 

Crowley did not move, or flinch, or give any sign that he had heard. 

Aziraphale turned and walked from the room, using magic to return his coat and his shoes to his person, and his books to his home, because he could not face the extra few minutes it would take to move around the place to gather them. He kept his coat pulled about him as he had descended the stairs of the grand hotel and out into the bustling street. 

Outside, Sunday was in full swing. People were crowded everywhere but they gave the angel a wide berth as he walked back through the narrow streets in the vague direction of his bookshop. There was a dark air around him - the sort of heavy foreboding feeling in the air that humans would more often have associated with a coming storm or (though they did not know it) a demon. The two types of supernatural entities were alarmingly similar in their abilities to broadcast their emotional state to the world - and this particular angel was particularly proficient at casting an air of ‘please kindly don’t fuck with me’. He had plenty of experience from his years performing temptations for a friend up and down the country. 

.

It took only thirty minutes to walk back to Soho and, once he arrived, Aziraphale didn’t know quite what to do with himself. The little shop looked exactly the same as it had when he left two days before. Everything was still in place, all the little piles of papers and spare leather to repair bindings. An old translation of the King James’ bible lay open on the desk at the back of the shop, marked with several bits of parchment where the angel was meaning to copy out sections for annotation. Everything was just as it had been three days previous. Everything but the bookshop's owner, himself. 

The angel made a hot drink and went to sit on the sofa - a relatively new addition to the small back room of the shop, which had not yet been covered in knick-knacks and ancient tomes. Resting the hot cup on his knee, he stared into space for a while, wondering why he felt as if he were waiting for something. There was nobody coming, he thought. He did not currently have any human acquaintances who were close enough to drop by. He had no business appointments set up for the coming week, and the sign on the door was enough to keep all but the most interested customers at bay. Nobody was coming. Crowley wasn’t coming. Crowley wouldn’t come. 

In the back of his mind, he realised he was equating the situation with how he had fled from the demon’s rooms in Rome, all those years before. But this wasn’t at all the same, he told himself, firmly. He might feel as if there were still some act to come, that the demon would come striding in and present him with a solution, but that was a fallacy. Crowley wasn’t coming with solutions or apologies this time, because he had done nothing wrong. He had been perfect, in fact. He had done his absolute best. This was just as far as they could go together, the angel thought. They had pretended as well as any two creatures could pretend but reality had broken through. 

He stared over towards the front door of the bookshop, willing the panes of glass to darken and show the outline of his friend - wondering if he would agree to fuck it all and run away with the demon if they did. 

Crowley had been everything he said he would be. It wasn’t his fault that things had come to this. The demon had nothing to apologise for. And the tiny part of Aziraphale that was annoyed with him, for saying what he did aloud and breaking the delicate fantasy they had been living in, had absolutely no legs to stand on. If he had been any more prone to speaking his mind, he would have said what Crowley said years ago. Decades, even. 

Leaning back against the sofa, the angel closed his eyes and let the events of the last few hours wash over him. The whiplash of going from where they had been to where they were felt catastrophic. It was a physical pain. Aziraphale felt on the verge of tears, but not ready to give in - not ready because it was not real, yet, in his mind. It wasn’t over. 

But it was, he told himself, clenching his jaw. It was over and, what’s more, it had never really been. The last nine months, scraped out over the last three hundred years, had been a pretence; _an illusion, a dream, a fantasy_. There was no space for something like he and Crowley in reality. They were made to be separate, opposites, contradictory. They were meant to magnetically repel, to thwart and destroy, to annihilate one another with the force of their beliefs. 

That he believed in Crowley more than anything else in the world was probably the reason it had gone so wrong, thought the angel, as realisation finally hit and tears began to flow down his face - hot and liquid and so very mortal. He was not meant to love like that. He was certainly not meant to believe in demons, or humanity, or Earth. His duty lay elsewhere. His only veneration should be Her name. Nothing could be put before Her. Nothing. He was an angel. He could never choose love over duty. That was the point of him. 

.

He cried for a long time that afternoon. Then he rearranged some of the bookshelves, and tidied the place, and made his plans for the coming week. Then he cried some more. 

Around him, everything felt the same yet irrevocably changed. And forever felt very long, stretched out ahead of him. Aziraphale had always felt the weight of the past, before, but now it was the weight of the future that frightened him. It was huge, and wide, and terrifying, and he felt suddenly, acutely alone in it. 

Resolving to integrate himself more firmly within the ranks of his own people, the angel gave himself one last night to mourn, then buried the emotion deep with the dawn light. There was no point in carrying on, he told himself, as the physical ache inside him continued to deepen and worsen. Letting himself succumb to emotion would not change things. It would not make it easier for him or for Crowley. 

They could return to being counterparts, he told himself as he shut up the shop the next morning and ventured out into the world to go about his small miracles. They would survive this as they had survived the rest of Earth’s challenges. They would continue, because they were made to do so.

.

Across the city, the demon remained curled up in the hotel room they had shared for three more days before dragging himself back to his apartments - causing three traffic accidents, a gas explosion, six cases of indigestion, and a mass spoiling of a food market on the way. Collapsing onto his bed, back in Mayfair, he cried himself into exhaustion and then slept for several years.

. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely people. First of all, I would like to apologise for the ANGST. I think we signposted it well enough in advance, but it's never nice to watch them hurting one another. 
> 
> To add insult to injury, there will be no update next week as I have a lot of deadlines piling up irl. I will be resuming posting the week after, however, and am excited to tie the story back into canon and show you where I see it going! 
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and comments. They are life. <3


	12. 1928 CE, London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people. First of all, apologies for the wait. Things were piling up and I needed to get them under control. I'm going to try and keep up a weekly posting for the next handful of chapters. There's not far to go, now. I think the whole fic is going to work out a little longer than initially predicted, but we'll have to see how we go. 
> 
> This chapter is a sad one, but it picks up again next week. 
> 
> CW : for a couple of mentions of violence. There is a scene where Aziraphale grabs Crowley by the wrist and another where Crowley pushes him against a wall, but there is absolutely no harm done to either of them.
> 
> .

**1928 CE, London**

.

Time moved on. That was the one, immutable truth about the world. Whatever happened, whatever horrors humanity threw at one another, time would move on. Years would pass. Seasons would recur. Humans would age. And angels and demons would continue to exist. 

The nineteenth century dribbled into the twentieth, the world changing in small but noticeable ways. Great Britain and her allies went to war with Imperial Russia along the northern coasts of the Black Sea. Rebellion stirred in China. Sardinia and France entered contest with Austria over the unification of Italy. Chemists distilled petroleum and the future for combustion engines was set. Telegraph cable was laid down over the Atlantic, drawing the world ever closer together.

Aziraphale watched it all with slightly less enthusiasm than he would have, a century previous. There were joys, yes - Earth was still a joy, the angel loved it no less, in this dark time of his soul - but it was harder to stir the same level of excitement. It was difficult to read a new story by one of his favourite authors and have no one to share it with. It was hard to march to war, yet again - to carry out difficult miracles and unfair blessings - and know that there was nobody to slip into his tent at night and lessen the load with their company. 

The delicate support system Aziraphale had built around himself, balanced on three points of Earth, Heaven, and Crowley, was suddenly lopsided. An anchor which Aziraphale had come to rely upon was suddenly gone. Worse than gone, actually. Like a phantom limb, the angel could still feel Crowley as a distant presence - a horrible, a faded reminder of what it had been like to have someone. It was like having an itch he could never scratch. 

The first few months after their separation were the hardest. It had been a near constant struggle for Aziraphale not to cave and seek contact. Though it was normal for them to spend years apart, he suddenly found himself tripping over reasons to drag the demon back into his life. He had to physically restrain himself from sending letters whenever there were works in play on his side of town - to reign himself in when he was offered a miracle or blessing which would have been perfectly suited for Crowley to cover, as per The Arrangement. That wasn’t something they did anymore, he kept having to remind himself. That was no longer what they were to one another. 

They were counterparts, he told himself, as weeks slowly pushed themselves into months and then into years. They were cordial enemies with a lot of history and more than a handful of reasons to give one another space. So, Aziraphale did his best to stay away. To hold his distance. 

He didn’t hear from Crowley at all for two years after that afternoon. Neither did he catch wind of any demonic activity in the Greater London area. Initially, he wondered whether Crowley had slunk off abroad, or back down to Hell to lick his wounds, but a detour past the demon’s official residence still registered enough magic to show that Crowley was still living in the area - albeit much more quietly than usual. Whatever he was up to, Crowley was still on Earth. 

This radio silence continued until the spring of eighteen fifty-two, when a letter appeared through the front door of Aziraphale’s bookshop one morning, requesting a meeting in St. James’ park. 

The location could have been picked better, in retrospect. (Though Aziraphale assumed that it was meant to be symbolic of putting the past behind them). Meeting for the first time would have been awkward enough without the memories of evenings spent here together pushing in: memories of wandering paths along the park’s narrow lakes, sharing information, and joking, and laughing, and eventually slipping off to waste the night somewhere more private. 

Crowley was stiff-backed and tight-jawed as the angel approached along the gravel path. Dressed in a simple, well-cut suit, he blended in perfectly with the surrounding humans, the tint of his glasses dark enough to block any hint of his golden eyes. 

The demon kept his hands fisted inside of his pockets for the entire conversation and his responses to Aziraphale’s pleasantries were standoffish, at best, but he was polite. They shared a ten minute conversation - covering what plans they had coming up, where in the country each of them should avoid, and any pertinent risks to special populations of humans - and then they bid one another goodbye and said they’d keep in touch. 

Aziraphale had been pleasantly surprised by how well they’d handled it, actually. It had been awful, of course, but nowhere near what he’d imagined in the days leading up to the encounter. Nobody had shouted. Nobody had cried. Neither of them had tried to smite the other from existence. Aziraphale hadn’t thrown himself at his old friend and sobbed like an idiot. All in all, quite a success. 

Their second meeting, four years later, went similarly. If anything, they were almost friendly. Crowley was trying too hard and Aziraphale could feel the fakeness of it grating but it was good to catch up again. They even managed to talk about a few things besides work. It wasn’t so very different from the first conversations they’d had had, all those centuries ago, when they’d first started to venture beyond their professional boundaries.

They discussed developments in motorcars and Crowley bemoaned a spate of icy weather they’d been having. Aziraphale complained about a recent spot check that Uriel had performed, which had involved him being reprimanded over the bookshop. And then they’d wandered out of the park and parted ways at the gate. They’d even shaken hands - Aziraphale trying desperately not to remember how his friend’s fingers had felt, ungloved, against his own.

The things he tried most desperately not to remember were not the things he had expected. Sex was easier to section off in his mind. He’d always been good at drawing lines around the physical. Harder, it turned out, was eradicating the memories of those in-between states. The just-before moments - sharing drinks and food and watching one another too long in dimly lit dining halls. The just-after moments - Crowley dozing against his side, fingers playing idly with his skin as Aziraphale read his newspaper, or a book, or chatted away about something silly. 

It was all the little things. The noise Crowley made when he stirred from sleep. The little wrinkle of his nose when he was faking a frown to cover a smile. The scent of his hair. The way he bounced his toes when he was concentrating. The way he touched two fingers to Aziraphale’s lower back when he brought him tea.

Those were the things that Aziraphale missed the most. Those were the things that he tried to banish from his mind as they met again, in eighteen fifty-seven, then eighteen fifty-eight - the false ease of their new relationship beginning to solidify into place, nervous tension in the air between them. 

Then, just as the sharpness of the pain was beginning to dull, it was eighteen sixty-two and they were standing in St James’s park, talking about nothing, and Crowley made a request for something that could rip him from his mortal shell and destroy him utterly - offering it out on a scrap of paper as if that made it less terrible than saying it out loud. 

And Aziraphale broke. Heart beating too fast. Panic rising. 

_You can’t do that. You can’t leave me here alone._

It was unfair. It was terribly unfair. He knew it, even in the moment. It was cruel to make it about him. Crowley was, ostensibly, asking for the holy water for protection. (There had been some preamble - some attempt at making out like it was to protect their ongoing cooperation). But the angel could not push from his mind the way that his friend had sagged down onto that sofa in the hotel twelve years ago, defeat dulling his eyes, and he had been so frightened. He had been afraid of losing Crowley forever and he had been cruel, because of it. 

He had snapped. And then Crowley had snapped. And then a lot of the anger which had been bubbling away beneath the surface suddenly boiled over. 

Aziraphale shouted and stormed away. Crowley didn’t follow. 

.

They didn’t see one another for forty years, after that day. They crossed paths, obliquely. The world was too connected for them to do otherwise. Aziraphale would find traces of old curses of Crowley’s - old temptations in the underbellies of the great cities of Europe. He found humans who bore the marks of Crowley’s attentions at a market in Vienna. In Paris. In Edinburgh. 

Aziraphale did not set eyes upon his counterpart, however, until they were both in South Africa, in 1901, amid the darkest hours of a guerrilla war. 

That day, Aziraphale spotted him across a refugee camp, wearing the colours of an infantryman, with a rifle slung across his shoulder. The demon had been crouched in the dirt beside three children, scratching out a pattern with a stick. His hair had been cut brutally short and a cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth - the very picture of a modern soldier - but his actions had been anything but militant. His concentration on the young humans must have distracted him from the sensation of Aziraphale’s magic, because he had been visibly relaxed. His shoulders loose, a smile playing around the corner of his mouth. 

_Crowley._

He had been beautiful. So beautiful. 

Aziraphale had watched him from the other side of the fence, fingers hooked into the twisted metal. He had watched the movements of his hands as the demon told the children some story. Watched the way his shirt gaped at the back of his neck - watched the freckles that the sun had burnished there. A myriad of pinpoint dots, set between ten darker marks. A near-perfect representation of the constellation Orion. Aziraphale could remember kissing them.

They did not talk that day in the camp. Aziraphale had not dared. He had slunk off back into the city and been careful to avoid crossing paths for nearly thirty years. 

When they did meet again, it was back on home ground, in London.

.

The winter of nineteen twenty-seven had been a harsh one. Aziraphale spent much of the December closeted away in the bookshop, burning lamps to take off the chill. Work at the bookshop was mostly taken up with correspondence. He had made contact with a collector of religious texts who claimed to have heard rumours of a certain heretical book of prophecy. As the new year began, however, the rumours were to be proved false. Then Aziraphale’s mood soured further with the tragic flood of the river Thames, in early January. 

Though the casualty count was low, Aziraphale had been reprimanded for his involvement in the clean up operation - a note was made in his permanent file of his ‘increasing tendency to become personally involved in human matters’. 

The slap on the wrist left him feeling hurt and numb. It was true that, over the last century, he had become increasingly entangled with human comings and goings. A certain amount of it was due to the population boom, but a large part was because of the sudden absence of Crowley in his life. To fill the void, Aziraphale had forced himself to pick up a slew of hobbies. He had learned to dance and dabbled in human magic. He had expanded the bookshop contents to include works of fiction and a small section on cartography. He took it upon himself to gather small groups of humans about him and help them in what little ways he could, by human means. 

It was a project started, initially, with the intention of shifting Heaven’s policy away from showy miracles. Once that idea was vetoed by Sandalphon, however, Aziraphale quietly kept it going for his own satisfaction. 

He grew fond of the humans that he gathered. Their presences brightened his life. And spending time with them for their own good, rather than Heaven’s, made rather a refreshing change. But, as all things of Earth, they were doomed to be a rotating cast. Aziraphale could not keep any of them in his life for too long, lest they notice that he did not age or sicken. This meant that, on a good year, he had a handful of human friends in his life to keep him occupied. But, on a bad year, he felt even more miserably alone. 

Nineteen twenty-eight was not a good year. 

Two of his humans had recently passed away from fever and another had moved to America with hopes of selling his writings for the screen. Aziraphale had been once more alone in London, in the wake of the flood, and Heaven’s latest reprimand, and the disappointment over Agnes Nutter’s lost book of prophecy. 

He was already predisposed to be melancholic when the missive came from Gabriel. His mood fell even lower, however, as he spotted the name of the demon which was causing the trouble at bottom of the page. 

_Crowley._

It was always going to be Crowley, of course. Their assigned territories overlapped. They were of similar speciality and rank. They were counterparts - naturally. Had it not been the pair of them in the beginning? 

(That was what Gabriel said, anyway, each time he sent Aziraphale off to thwart one of Crowley’s schemes. _Was he not best fitted for this task? Was it not his duty to thwart the serpent now, to compensate for not managing to do so in the garden_?)

More often than not, the schemes that Aziraphale was sent to ‘thwart’ were unsolvable chaotic messes which posed no threat to humanity beyond mild irritation, but the language in this missive was stronger. Crowley had caught the attention of management by poking around in Heaven’s current project at St Mary’s. Gabriel wrote of ‘ _wilful destruction_ ', and ‘ _involvement with possible occultists_ ’ and (Aziraphale had to roll his eyes at this one) ‘ _scientists_ '. 

Added at the bottom of the missive was the postscript that Aziraphale would not come out of this looking very good if he was ‘ _bested by Hell’s Serpent yet again_ ’. 

'Yet again’ was underlined twice.

Aziraphale stared at the paper for a solid ten minutes, trying to think of an excuse not to get involved. Standing between Heaven and Crowley was the last place he wanted to be, but there did not seem to be any way of extricating himself without arousing suspicion. The project in St Mary’s was in his territory, on paper, and Gabriel would be skeptical if he did not want to defend it. Crowley knew that. 

The demon could be such an ass…

Aziraphale turned the paper over and slowly, deliberately, folded it into halves, and then quarters. 

_Crowley_.

Crowley must have known that interfering at the hospital would impact Aziraphale. Crowley must have known that Aziraphale would have to become personally involved, or risk Heaven looking over his past field reports with a fine tooth comb. Crowley knew what they would find, if they did. 

There had been slip ups on both sides of their little arrangement, after all. There were breadcrumbs there - evidence, if anyone looked closely. And Crowley knew the price for treachery.

This was manipulation, then. A spitwad fired at the back of his head while the rest of the class and the teacher were watching. Crowley knew that he would have to respond and that it would force them into interacting. 

Anger burning into life within his chest, Aziraphale stood, clicked his fingers, and made his way towards the door. 

.

It was raining when he arrived at the house on Park Lane - a pathetic fallacy to the dread growing in the angel’s gut. Stepping from the cab, Aziraphale ran the short distance from the pavement to the front door, arriving miraculously dry.

The doorman seemed surprised to find his name on the guest list, (Aziraphale did not look of an age or type to be friends with the young society host), but everything did seem above board so he allowed Aziraphale through and, inside, the angel immediately turned his attention to his task. 

Pushing through the atrium, he scanned for a familiar flash of red amongst the guests. The crowd was painted in a myriad of colours - shimmering in gold and gems. The air was filled with the sound of their laughter. And with the music of a four piece, playing in the corner. The song felt vaguely familiar to Aziraphale, but not enough to conjure a name. 

The angel did not pause to take it in. He was there for one purpose.

Stepping through the crowds, he found Crowley standing at the far end of the library, at the base of a winding stair, surrounded by a small group of young humans, all laughing raucously at some joke. 

The sight of her hit like a punch in the gut. 

Aziraphale had known where the demon would be tonight, of course. He could feel when she was in town and kept an eye on reports of Hellish interference in the area. For the first time, as well, he had also been able to track Crowley through the human press.

The demon had been reckless, this past decade. She had allowed herself to become a recognisable society face. There were countless stories in the newspapers about her wild parties and her fast car, and her scavenger hunts around London. She had befriended a circle of young aristocrats who all doted upon her for her wild ways. None of them had the first clue what they were dabbling in, of course - none of them knew that she was more than another chaotic young soul and, from what Aziraphale read, Crowley never told them. 

There were a thousand speculations, of course. One week, the bright young people were saying that Crowley was a spy who had gone behind German lines in the Great War. The next, she was the unmarried heiress to one of Europe’s royal families. The next, an urchin from the streets, risen to riches through her own ingenuity. Whatever the story, they remained fascinated by her - drawn to the dark power that slipped through her veins. They worshipped her like a heathen god. 

She looked like one, tonight. 

Aziraphale’s feet carried him towards the demon with more speed than he would have liked. He had imagined the moment of their meeting on the way over - had imagined striding up and making some grand statement. He had imagined his voice sounding clear and confident, and Crowley looking abashed. Ashamed, even. He had imagined looking like the composed one but, as he drew level, his voice cracked over the first syllable. 

“Wh-hat the devil are you playing at?” 

His heart rate leapt up in panic. His throat suddenly felt tight as the assembled humans all turned their heads.

Crowley was the last to face him, tilting her chin up and sweeping kohl-lined eyes over his attire. 

“Hello Aziraphale.” Her lips curled into a sneer. “Long time no see.” 

Something twisted like a knife in the angel’s gut. 

“Is this your work?” He brandished the missive from Gabriel.

Crowley’s eyes dropped to the paper. 

“Is _what_ my work?” 

“This - St Mary’s - this nonsense about rheumatic fever!” 

“I didn’t know you kept up to date with developments in microbiology.” She slurred over the word ‘developments’. 

She was drunk, Aziraphale realised, staring up at her. Drunker than he had seen her in centuries. 

“I don’t keep up with any of it,” he snapped up. “I had a project in the same hospital. The next wing over, in fact - as you know fine well. You had no right to start interfering.” 

“Who said I went anywhere near your poxy project?” the demon sniffed.

“This!” Aziraphale brandished the missive. “This says!”

“Gabriel…” Crowley sneered, staring down at it. “Of course. You know, Gabriel only knows because Michaell told him.” 

“That’s besides the point.”

“Do you want to know how Michael knows?” 

“I don’t bloody care why Michael knows!” 

“Of course you don’t. Why look at the bigger picture when you can bitch at me about the minutiae?”

“Minutiae?” Aziraphale felt a rush of heat to his cheeks. “Crowley, you’ve invented antibiotics twenty years before they’re meant to happen! You can’t just do that! You don’t get to decide those things.”

There was a shifting of the humans around them - a wind of whispers. Abruptly, Aziraphale remembered that they were not alone. 

Lowering his voice, he took a step towards Crowley, trying to cut the humans nearby out of the conversation. 

“It was grotesquely irresponsible,” he growled at her.

“Isn’t that part of my job description?” 

“That funding was meant to go to my project. Not yours.”

“Oh, Satan, does it matter?” 

“Of course it matters! You’re not just tweaking details, Crowley, you’re changing directives.” 

“Oh dear...” Crowley lifted a cigarette to her lips. “Have I upset the delicate balance of the natural order? Did heaven decree for more souls to die gloriously in the name of the Lord?” She blew a perfect smoke ring in Aziraphale’s direction.

The angel felt anger and fear twist inside of him. 

This was wrong, he thought, swearing quietly under his breath. It was too dangerous. There were humans all around - too many eyes. They couldn’t do this here. 

“We need to talk,” he pointed towards the doorway. “Come with me. Outside. Now.”

Crowley curled a lip, flashing a too-sharp canine. 

“I’m afraid I can’t. A little busy right now, if you haven’t noticed.” 

“I think your friends can spare you for five minutes. Now, if you don’t mind-”

“But I do.” 

“Crowley, this isn’t a suggestion!” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” the demon snapped.

“Oh, I think you are,” Aziraphale reached forwards. 

“Hey-!” The human who had been standing a few feet to Crowley’s left stepped forwards. He was tall, broad across the shoulders, and the way he puffed out his chest as he stepped in between them told Aziraphale that he had every intention of involving himself in the argument. “Listen, pal, I think you should take it easy,” he told Aziraphale.

The angel eyed him. 

He didn’t want a fight, but this was important. 

“I’m not trying to cause a fuss,” he told the human, trying to keep his voice level. “And I won’t take up more than five minutes of your friend’s time, but I’m afraid this is rather important.” 

The human glanced back at Crowley, making an expression of inquiry to which Crowley shook her head. It was a familiar thing. A knowing thing. The sort of casual, wordless communication that passed easily between friends. Or lovers. 

Aziraphale swallowed, feeling something burning through the centre of him, feeling his cheeks heat further.

“I just want to talk,” he muttered again. 

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate time,” the human told him, turning back from Crowley and not shifting from his position. 

“It’s important,” Aziraphale insisted. 

“Then you can leave a note with the doorman, or say it here.” 

“It is a private matter!”

“I don’t feel comfortable with your tone.”

“There is nothing wrong with my tone.” 

“I think i’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The demon gave a low chuckle, behind him.

“Do you hear that? George is going to throw you from the premises.” 

Aziraphale closed his eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath. 

“Crowley, don’t…” 

“Do you think he’d win in a fair fight?” Crowley pressed, the timbre of her voice one she had often used, to stir humans into frenzy. “You know, I reckon he might be able to take you, Aziraphale. Magic aside.”

Aziraphale opened his eyes.

“I have no interest in finding out. Now, will you please come along?” He motioned towards the door but Crowley continued to ignore him.

“I genuinely don’t know what you’d do,” she sneered. “You hate confrontation but I think if you got worked up enough you might give it a go.”

“Oh, for goodness sake…”

“Maybe you’d throw it, after getting a few punches in - just to make it convincing.” 

“Crowley will you please shut up!” The angel snapped. 

The human, George, moved forwards, grabbing Aziraphale by the shoulder.

“I think you’d better leave.”

“Excuse me!” 

“You’re causing a scene.”

“I think you’d better unhand me, sir.”

“Come along.”

“This is a private matter between me and-,”

“Ugh.” Crowley stepped forwards, pushing the human to one side, casting narrowed eyes at Aziraphale. “Enough,” she growled. “You win. Let’s talk.” Waving one hand, she cast a hasty spell. “I’m done with you all. Bugger off. Go entertain yourselves.” 

It was obnoxious, showy magic. Every human in the vicinity immediately glazed over and began to wander off, expressions confused. A tingling in the air told Aziraphale that all memory of this argument had been stolen from them, but it did not stop his stomach from clenching with fright. 

Never - never in the history of their work on Earth - had he and Crowley ever performed spells on humans like this. They always worked more subtly. Crowley was risking attention from both above and below in making such a move tonight. And to make it in Aziraphale’s presence, when Gabriel (and probably others) knew where he would be, was too much. It was far too much.

Reaching out, the angel grabbed Crowley by the wrist and pulled her off in the direction of the nearest door, which turned out to be a cloakroom. 

“That is _quite_ enough,” he growled, pulling her inside then slamming the door behind them. “Really - Crowley - I can’t believe you!” 

“Get off of me!” 

Aziraphale felt her twist free from his fingers and did not fight to hold on. He paced away instead, moving over to the far side of the small room. Crowley followed, as if drawn, her breaths harsh in the darkness. 

Aziraphale heard her draw a final breath from her cigarette and then drop it - heard her crush it to the floor with the tip of her shoe where it glowed for a few more seconds. 

Infernal red. 

“What is this, then?” She snarled, as she straightened up a few feet away from him. “Some kind of intervention?”

“This is me putting my foot down,” Aziraphale growled back, satisfaction and anger writhing in his belly. 

He wanted this argument to go well. He wanted to feel vindicated. He wanted Crowley to shy away in shame. But all of that seemed unlikely as she stepped forwards, pacing in front of him in the unlit room. 

“What are you playing at?” He spat. 

“Nothing new,” the demon sneered.

“Nothing new? Crowley, you’re being incredibly reckless! Even here, tonight. Carrying on with those young humans - that stunt with the antibiotics - my people are asking questions!”

“Yeah, mine too.” The demon tilted her head. There was just enough light coming in from the streetlamp outside to send a flash across her tinted glasses. “They’re not sure whether I did it to fuck with their plans for another plague, or out of sheer incompetence.” 

She must have sobered up, Aziraphale thought, because her speech was suddenly clearer, her stance steady. 

“The Dukes are livid,” Crowley continued, across from him. “There was a tribunal. Lots of questions. Lots of flowcharts.” Turning on her heel, she began to pace. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her eyes never left Aziraphale, the tension in the air growing sharper between them. “I got off with it, in the end. They assumed I just fucked up. Accidental consequence of chaos. Hastur wasn’t convinced, though. Said he was going to keep a closer eye on me, from now on... Said if I wanted to defect, I should have found an angel and done some begging.” A nasty smile drew across her lips. “He thinks I’d have better luck earning my way into Heaven on my back, than with great deeds. More fool him.” 

Aziraphale tried to ignore the comment, but it stung.

“Why did you do it?” He hissed, the anguish seeping out in his voice 

Crowley shrugged. 

“Dunno. Wanted to.”

“You can’t handle fire from both sides, Crowley. It’s too dangerous. Even for you.”

“I’ve managed this far.”

“You’ve never worked like this. Never. You have always kept to your side and I have kept to mine. That is how this works!” 

“Works?” the demon scoffed. “Please, tell me how any of this ‘works’.” 

“There are sides. There are directives-.”

“Everybody’s making up policy as they go, Aziraphale, you know they are. None of it is good or bad. It just is. It all _just_ _is.”_

Aziraphale glared at her.

He wanted to cross the distance between them and push her back against the wall, - push her into it until she saw reason. 

He could do it, he thought, bitterly. He could break her if he wanted. He was strong enough. In a fair fight, he could banish her from the face of this earth - rip her free of her physical body and scatter her atoms through the ether. Hell, he was angry enough. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to break something. But the idea of Crowley in pain was more bitter than anger. It left a sour taste in his mouth. Made his stomach turn. 

Aziraphale lowered his gaze, pacing away, avoiding the demon’s eyes. 

“You have got to stop this,” he bit, after half a minute of silence. “You must be more careful.”

“I _must_ do nothing.” His counterpart hissed. “That was the point of rebelling, remember? I am bound no more.” 

She held up her hands, slender wrists encircled in silver bangles and jewels. She could not have looked less free. 

The pity must have shown on Aziraphale’s face. 

Giving a low growl, Crowley stepped closer, teeth bared in a predatory fashion - a snake about to strike.

“You can think what you like,” she spat, “but I’m not the one shackled to a regime that propagates the mass death of children in the name of faith.”

The angel shook his head.

“That’s not-”

“I’m not the one whose God slaughters the innocent in their droves.”

“I don’t-”

“Who allows Their most ardent followers to suffer in the name of devotion. Your God, who-”

“I beg your pardon? _My_ God?”

“Yes, _your_ God.”

“Rebellion or not,” Aziraphale snapped. “She never stopped being your God!”

The impact happened before he had time to register movement. 

Suddenly, Aziraphale was pressed up against the wall, clawed hands at his shoulders. Crowley’s teeth were bared - fangs replacing incisors, tongue parted down the middle - the side of her neck was shadowed with scales. 

“Do I look like something of your God’s creation, Angel?” She spat - and Aziraphale heard the lack of lower case in it - the lack of epithet. It was ‘angel’ as in the species. ‘Angel’ as in the enemy. “Do I look like something that belongs in Her light?” 

Crowley’s palm was pressed down on his collar and, for the briefest moment, panic flared in Aziraphale’ chest before it turned to action. 

His hands rose up instinctively, fingers wrapping around Crowley’s wrists, grasping her in his unmatchable power. Firm. Captured. 

“Be still, demon.” 

“Ssssee... there you are,” Crowley snarled at him, hands forming fists within his grasp. Aziraphale felt the tendons at her wrist slide, under the skin. “That’s what you think, isssn’t it? All those words. All that high minded dissscourssse… but I’m alwayss going to be a demon, at the end of it.” Her teeth were bared.

Aziraphale’s hands were wrapped around the bones of her arm. 

He could crush them, he thought. He could crush them into dust. He could tear her from this form, banish her into the ether. He could. He could. 

_He couldn’t.  
_

_C_ _ouldn’t do it. Couldn’t hurt her._

“Was it always pity?” Crowley hissed, voice losing strength halfway through the sentence, cracking as her wrists stilled in Aziraphale's grasp. “The whole time?”

And, looking up into her face, the angel felt his anger drain away. 

This was his mess, he thought, with a sharp stab of pain. This was his damage. He might have convinced himself that he had come here tonight to pass on a warning, to conduct business, but really he had been angry and jealous. He had been lonely and he had wanted to see Crowley - to see her draped in finery and revelling in debauchery, enjoying herself without him. He had wanted to hate the demon. He had wanted to feel satisfaction about his choice to force them apart. But there was no satisfaction here. 

He had done this, the angel thought, slowly loosening his grip. He had been the one to let them to fall together. He had been the one to push them apart. It had been his words which had broken Crowley open in that hotel room and left her scared, and angry, and alone. It would serve him right if the demon scratched those claws right through the heart of him. 

He released her.

For a moment Crowley kept her hands raised, looking as if she might follow through with her initial movement and hit him. Then, the anger slowly flickered and vanished from her face. The snarl of her lip softened, the edges turning down.

Slowly, she reached in - but the movement was not one of anger anymore. If anything, it was one of tenderness. A soft thing, that ended with warm skin brushing against Aziraphale’s cheek. Fingertips at his jaw. A palm at his mouth.

Aziraphale fought the urge to kiss it.

“I don't know how to do this...” Crowley whispered, stroking a thumb against him. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

A step brought them up against one another. Aziraphale heard his counterpart give a shaky sigh out, leaning in until their noses brushed and their warm breath mingled in the cold night air. 

“Why don’t you just cast me out of this world, hm?” She hissed, voice low and desperate. “Why don’t you destroy me? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

And Aziraphale’s hands were moving on their own accord - drawn by need and years of familiarity. They brushed her sides, feeling the strength of her familiar bones. Breathing in the scent of her familiar skin. He stroked over the silk of her dress, feeling it catch under his fingertips, bunching at the flat plane of her chest.

Destroy you, he mused, feeling her human heartbeat race - powered by the imagination of a demonic soul. _How could I destroy something like you?_

Against him, Crowley lifted a hand to his shoulder, touching the point where she had pushed him, moments before. The shove hadn’t been hard enough to leave a mark but she swore nonetheless.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

“You didn’t,” Aziraphale murmured. “It’s nothing.” 

“Sssss’ not,” Crowley’s thumb traced his collarbone, through the fabric of his shirt. The thought of the mark she might have left turning the corners of her mouth into a snarl. “Fuck.” 

A tear appeared from under her dark glasses, slipping down her left cheek, leaving a track in the powder there. 

It broke Aziraphale all over again. 

_Why is it you who is always apologising? You’ve done nothing wrong. This is my mess. I started this._

“Don’t,” he whispered. “It's fine. I am okay.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed you.” 

“And I shouldn’t have come tonight. Or shouted. Or dragged you in here.” 

“Both guilty, then…”

“Yes.” 

It stung.

Crowley leaned in, resting their foreheads together. Aziraphale could hear frustration and longing mixing in her sharpened breaths. 

_It felt so good to be close again._

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you...”

“I know.”

Cheeks brushed cheeks. 

“I never meant for that.”

“I know.” 

“I miss you so much.” Her lips parted, catching the exhale that fell from his lips. “Do you miss me?” 

Her mouth was soft, a gentle inquiry that Aziraphale could not resist. 

Leaning in, he kissed her, letting her fingers draw them closer. Her lips were wet with tears and saliva. She tasted of gin and Chambord. And Crowley. Just Crowley. 

It was unbearable relief and somehow not nearly enough. Aziraphale found himself gasping with the need for more - to be closer. He needed skin and contact. He needed to be wound tightly in those strong arms. He needed to press her back against the wall and block the rest of the world out. 

His mortal body was beginning to respond to the familiarity of the sensation - matching Crowley’s movements, pressing to meet her as she leant into him. His fingers traced old patterns along her neck and jaw, winding into her hair, steering them closer. The feel of her growing hard against the underside of his belly was familiar, too. And beautiful. It was everything he had been missing these last fifty years. 

Aziraphale gave a soft sigh of pleasure, fingers fisting into the fabric of Crowley’s dress as the demon stepped forwards, straddling his thigh. Long hands were sliding down between them to fumble with his trouser buttons - and it was so familiar, the angel thought, yet again. It was perfect. Their mouths were hot and their bodies were so solid - so very real, pressed up against one another. And the rest of the world was fading away. There were only heartbeats, Aziraphale thought, sliding a hand between them, finding the hard line of Crowley’s cock beneath the silk. There were only gasping breaths and nerve endings. Skin drawing pleasure from skin. 

“Mm…” 

Their mouths parted as she groaned out her pleasure, face falling into the crook of his neck. 

_Perfect._

Aziraphale slipped his fingers apart, squeezing each side of her, stroking her into his palm. He knew this. He knew exactly how Crowley liked this. He had learned it so well, over the years. Sliding his hand down, he repeated the movement and the demon gasped and rocked forwards against him. 

This, Aziraphale thought. This was everything. How could he have let this go? 

Crowley’s fingers at his shoulder were vice-tight, her nails digging in through his dinner jacket. Her breath was hot on his neck. And then on his mouth. And there wasn’t enough air in the room, Aziraphale thought, pulling her closer and grinding into the swell of her hip. Their breathing was growing ragged between the sweetness of their kisses. Time was spinning away. 

And then the moment fractured.

The door of the cloakroom sprung open. Light spilled inside, accompanied by raucous music from the atrium and a loud peal of laughter. 

“Oh!” 

Aziraphale froze.

Two human figures stood, silhouetted in the light of the doorway. For a moment, everyone held very still, just staring at one another. Then, the shorter of the two backlit figures grabbed the other by the hand and steered them both out again. Calling an apology over their shoulder, they let the door fall closed, cloaking the angel and demon once more in darkness. 

Reality had remained behind with them, however. The moment was gone. 

Aziraphale breathed out, releasing the fabric of Crowley’s dress. The demon turned her face away, panting into the crook of the angel’s neck. They stood, frozen as the seconds dragged towards a dozen. Then, Crowley’s body tensed. She let out a horrible, strained little noise, her hand lifting from Aziraphale’s shoulder to slam against the wall behind them. 

“Fuck!” Her head tilted forwards, to hide her face, but Aziraphale did not need to see the demon’s expression to read the anger there. The frustration and hurt. 

“Crowley…”

“Fuck,” she whined again, voice slurred with lust and grief. 

“It’s okay.” Aziraphale reached up, brushing a thumb against her cheek before thinking. 

Crowley flinched. 

“Don’t-” 

“Oh.” 

Aziraphale retreated. 

A few moments passed. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Aziraphale faltered. He didn’t know what he meant. He didn’t know what to do. His heart was racing and his head was swimming - shame and regret pooling inside of him. His demon was in pain and he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say.

Crowley. 

_Crowley. Crowley. Crowley._

She was shaking. 

“Here,” Aziraphale gathered himself, holding out a hand he helped her step back and regain her footing. 

Crowley avoided his eyes as she straightened the hem of her dress, adjusting herself underneath. It was an intensely vulnerable moment. 

“I didn’t mean for this,” she muttered, as she stood more upright again. “I didn’t.” 

Aziraphale could see her swallowing, repeatedly - see the hard edge of the cartilage in her throat. 

“That wasn’t why I was messing around at the hospital.” 

“I believe you,” he assured her softly. 

“I didn’t set out to get you in trouble. It wasn’t a trap, or a ruse, or…” Crowley looked around the room, expression desperate behind the glasses. 

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. We can’t do this.” 

“I know…” 

Half a minute passed in tortured silence. 

“We’ve co-existed for six thousand years,” Crowley muttered, hoarsely. “Why is this the one part we can’t take back?”

"I don’t know.” It was an honest answer. 

“I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity being pissed at you, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale stared up at her. At the tear tracks on her cheeks. At the smudged edge of her lip. Red on pink, still beautiful. In heels, Crowley stood nearly a head above him, he thought, but they still fit. They had always fit. 

“I shouldn’t have come here tonight,” he told the demon, quietly. “It was selfish and crass, and served no purpose.” He wanted desperately to apologise for the other pains he had caused, but he knew that would somehow make it worse. They couldn't talk about love. Not now. He could feel that on-edge thing growing in Crowley again. That pain-turning-to-anger. That ready-to-break feeling. “I was scared that Heaven would come poking around and I made it about me,” he muttered. “But I shouldn’t have. You had every right to do what you did at the laboratory. I should have told Gabriel that it was just collateral that happened in Earthly projects. Just one of those things.”

“I stumbled into the project by accident,” Crowley muttered - a confession in stuttered parts. “I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I just wanted a reaction. Some sign that you were even still here.”

“Yes. I gathered.” 

“It was like you’d dropped off the face of the planet.”

“I know.”

“We fought and then you were just... gone.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale looked at his feet.

“You were avoiding me and s’not like I even knew if I wanted to see you, but I…” Crowley drew in a very long breath, then let it out in one shaky sigh. “…fff-fuck.” She closed her eyes, hung her head back. Swallowed a few times.

“Do you want me to leave?” Aziraphale asked, after a long pause. 

The demon shook her head without opening her eyes. 

“No.”

“I can,” Aziraphale pressed. “If it’s easier?” He let the words hang in the air, feeling miserable that they weren’t rejected right away - hating that he was selfish enough to be thinking about this as a rejection. “We return to communicating by letter, if you like?" he offered. “Or pretend we’ve never met - become the angel and the demon our superiors read about in our reports.” He voiced it as a joke but, in the silence afterwards, he was suddenly scared that Crowley was going to agree to the terms. 

Thankfully, the demon only gave a shaky laugh. 

Opening her eyes, she looked down from the ceiling. 

“Satan, can you imagine? We’d get so much done…” 

“Mm.” 

There was a long pause.

Aziraphale fiddled with his thumbnail.

“I never said we shouldn’t talk, Aziraphale,” Crowley pointed out, after a while. “I wasn’t the one who cut contact.” 

“I know.”

“I was trying to be cordial.”

“You were. I just…” Aziraphale sighed. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say to you. I didn’t want to make it worse.”

Crowley stared at him.

“How could you possibly make it _worse_?” 

“I didn’t want to draw attention. My productivity had dropped through the floor and upstairs had started keeping a perilously close eye on me, and I thought that if I could just concentrate on getting that part of my life back in order-,” 

“Oh, for Satan’s sake!” Crowley gave a frustrated little groan. "This isn’t about your quotas, you prick.” 

Aziraphale flinched and looked back down at his feet. 

“I know.” He knew it wasn’t about quotas. But he didn’t know what else to say. He had no way of quantifying this pain. No way of mitigating it. He had never felt so powerless in all of his time on Earth. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, eventually, motioning towards the door of the cloakroom. “I’ll leave. This is your world. I should leave.”

“Aziraphale…” Crowley lifted one hand to slide her dark glasses free, then used shaking tips of the other one to wipe the mascara tracks away. “Can you just… stand there and shut up for a minute?” She drew a heavy breath in, then let it out again, the noise slightly wet. “I’ve got a lot on right now. My head’s fucked. I just need a minute.” 

“I’m sorry. Take as many minutes as you need.”

The demon threw him a sideways look. Maybe grateful. Maybe thinking him patronising. Aziraphale could not tell, through the glasses. 

After several minutes, Crowley took a steadying breath. 

“Listen,” she began, slowly. “Let’s just… sit down for a bit. We don’t have to agree to anything. Let's just have a drink. Share one interaction that doesn’t end with one of us biting the other one’s head off. We can manage that, right?” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale replied, with more surety than he felt. 

“Right.” The demon gave one last shaky sigh, and led the way towards the door. “Come on, then.” 

.

They returned to the party, shielded from the attention of the other guests by some minor miracle of the angel’s doing. Wandering through the crowded atrium, they took a bottle of champagne from the bar and made their way through to a capacious drawing room. There they found two chairs in a secluded corner and sat down. 

Quietly, carefully, they pushed into a conversation about what had been going on in their lives over the past fifty years. They shared a few details of projects on the go - ostensibly so that they could avoid one another’s work, but also because it felt good to be talking again, and there were very few subjects they could safely tread. 

They sat amongst the children of the first world war, the children whose parents had died in their droves in the fields of Belgium - who did not know that their own children would die in their droves, in fifteen years time, in other fields - and talked of war. Talked of the cyclical nature of it. Talked about the growing discontent in the air. 

And, for the first time in all the years that Aziraphale had known Crowley, the demon talked of their own Great War. Just a few words. But enough to surprise the angel. 

“I wasn’t made for any of this,” she murmured, after reminiscing about the similarity of the Somme to that other battlefield, so many eons ago - many universes and instances of the world ago. “I was made to create.” 

The words twisted like a blade in Aziraphale’s gut. But he sought to offset the darkness of the conversation, to even it out - Crowley’s counterbalance to the last. 

“I was made for war,” he said, looking down at his manicured hands, at his fine clothes and the improbable softness of his mortal body - this vessel which had carried him through the last six thousand years. “It’s odd, isn’t it?”

The tiniest of smiles flickered around Crowley’s mouth as she turned to face him properly, but it did nothing to lessen the abandon in her eyes. 

“No, Aziraphale,” she told him, quietly. “Anyone who knows you can see that you were made for war.” 

.

They didn’t talk any more that night. They finished their bottle by the fire in silence and then Aziraphale begged his leave. He did not ask Crowley what she had meant by ‘you were made for war’. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

They said goodbye at the door with a promise to get in contact if any of their future plans looked likely to involve one another’s work. Then Crowley said she’d see him around, climbed into the back of a black cab, and disappeared into the night. 

Aziraphale walked home alone. 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments over the last few chapters. I've been having a rough month but your words made it a little brighter. Hope this chapter wasn't too much. It's on to the 1940s next... ! 
> 
> See you next week. :)


	13. 1939 CE, London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time apart. A war. A reunion.

1939 CE, London

.

They met several dozen times during the war - the war that Aziraphale could not quite bring himself to call the second war, because he had seen too much of the first to believe that it had ever truly ended. It had just slumbered for twenty years then reawakened, he thought, with faster tanks and deadlier guns. And the new conflict looked set to be a horror the likes of which the world had never seen. 

The angel had felt pestilence and famine stirring throughout the twenties and thirties. Death yawning itself awake, lines being drawn across maps, people being stored into boxes; humanity, preparing themselves for the moral binary which war required. 

The number of instructions Aziraphale received from Heaven exploded. He was wanted in France - in Italy - in Norway. There was a small group of resistance fighters who needed inspiration, in Vienna. A woman in Berlin whose bravery needed rewarding. A child who was to walk out of a cold forest on a winter night, the sole survivor of a terrible massacre. 

The first world war seemed to have given Heaven inspiration. There were areas of human nature that had been relatively unplumbed and policy shifts left Aziraphale working in darker spaces than he was used to. Spaces where he was not surprised to bump into Crowley from time to time. 

The demon’s work did not take place strictly across enemy lines - not in human terms. Crowley could be found throughout Aziraphale’s sphere of work. In the resistance groups, in back rooms of war cabinets, translating on the front; the demon flitted here and there, inspiring sin. Whether demonic work was easier or harder for the desperation of wartime, Aziraphale was not sure. 

Their first meeting happened in nineteen thirty-nine, on the eve of the British Declaration, on a sodden green just north of Soho. It was overcast and drizzling. Dark-suited workers rushed to and from Oxford street, obscured by a canopy of umbrellas. Aziraphale stood right on the edge of the green, a pale smudge against an otherwise grey diorama, fiddling with his pocket watch.

“Cold night for it,” Crowley announced as she arrived, stepping into view around the edge of the park railing. 

She was dressed in a belted overcoat, the short red of her hair only just visible under a wide rimmed hat. 

The greeting was a little clipped, Aziraphale thought, as he turned to greet her. A little forced, but not unfriendly. They’d been on relatively good terms over the last decade.

“Crowley.” He held out his hand. They shook. It felt strange, still, keeping this veil of formality between them. Aziraphale found himself longing for the middle ages, where they had joked freely, sharing time and sharing drinks - just two friends with all of the subtext still buried beneath the surface. “How are you?” He asked the demon, taking a wild stab at propriety. “Did you take the bus?” 

“Nah. Cab.” 

Reaching into a pocket, Crowley withdrew a pack of cigarettes and offered one out. 

Aziraphale took one.

“Thank you.” 

“So you’ve heard, then?” 

“Yes,” the angel let out a little sigh. He knew exactly what Crowley was here to talk about. “I think it has been rather inevitable for months, now.” 

“Years, probably.”

“Mm.” 

“Light?”

“Oh. Yes.” 

He leant towards Crowley, to let the demon light his cigarette. The intimacy of the movement sent a tingle up the back of his spine, followed by a deluge of self-loathing. 

“The announcement will happen in the morning. Eleven o’ clock.” 

“You have sources?” 

“Yes. They don’t expect there to be trouble.” 

“I imagine there will be relief from the people.” 

“Mm. A popular war.” 

Aziraphale eyed the demon, wondering at what point in history he and Crowley had started to become inured to these mass casualty events. Was it after the fifth war? The tenth? The first death of a hundred? The first million?

“No peace in our time for Chamberlain.” 

“There was never going to be peace,” Crowley muttered. “Not after Albania.”

“No. They say he’ll have Eden and Churchill for the war cabinet.” 

“Great, because what we all need is another Gallipoli…” 

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” 

“It always comes to that, Aziraphale.” 

It did always come to that, Aziraphale thought. Such was the nature of war. Commanders in tents a hundred miles away. Politicians in buildings across distant seas. The young soldiers in trenches, practically rubbing shoulders with the enemy. There was something very relatable about it all, he thought, watching Crowley take a deep breath of her cigarette. 

“Will you be redeployed?” The demon asked, on the exhale. 

Her eyes were upon him. Aziraphale could tell, even through the tint of her sunglasses. It was written in the angle of her face. 

“No,” he answered, slowly. “Not for now, anyway. They’re happy with what I’ve been doing here. I imagine that will change, come the spring. I think Michael has some projects involving the navy. But not yet.”

Crowley nodded and took another drag of her cigarette. 

“I’m heading over.”

“To the continent?” 

“Paris, first. Then east.” 

“To Germany?”

“The Pacific.” 

Something that usually resided in Aziraphale’s chest dropped out of it, down into his stomach. 

The Pacific. 

The other side of the world. 

He let out a slow breath, finding his appetite for the rest of the cigarette gone in an instant. Looking down, he dropped it to the gravel and squeezed the life out of it with his foot. 

“When?” He asked, trying to keep his tone level. 

“I leave for Paris in a week.” 

Aziraphale swallowed.

A week. Crowley would be sailing to Paris in a week. Another few, and the demon would be on the other side of the world. Six thousand miles away. 

It did not feel real. They’d been stationed near to one another for so long that Aziraphale had forgotten what it felt like not to have that constant ‘awareness’ of one another. He was so used to stumbling across Crowley’s signature everywhere; in the foundations of a town hall, in the history of a local wine cult, in the etymology of a certain phrase. They had always been a part of one another’s world. They had spent six thousand years living within a few hundred miles of one another. (There had been occasions where one or both of them had travelled, of course, to complete a blessing or a curse, but it had never been for long). This was new. Unusual. 

“Did you-?” Aziraphale faltered. He wanted to ask whether she had chosen the task specifically for the distance, but there didn’t seem like any way of doing so without making the question about ‘them’. 

Crowley must read it in his voice, however.

“They were looking for someone with language experience,” she murmured, not quite meeting his eye, watching a stray cat make its way across the green instead. “Thought it might be a change of pace. I made a bit of a name for myself, these last twenty years. Some time away from London wouldn’t be a terrible idea.” 

“Of course.” 

The words sounded so small as they escaped Aziraphale’s lips. He felt weak, exposed. Crowley was going to the other side of the world. Six thousand miles away. 

Aziraphale knew that distance did not mean the same thing for supernatural beings as for humans. He knew that, theoretically, he could push enough magic through his mortal form to shift it across such huge tracts of land. He could manage six thousand miles in a couple of jumps. Crowley could do it in not that many more. It would not take them a months-long boat ride, if they needed to see one another. Theoretically, they were still within reach - but it was not the same. 

The plausible deniability of bumping into one another would be gone. Their assigned human populations would have no crossover. Their blessings and temptations would have no reason to interact. There would be no need to meet and discuss tactics. There would be no need for truces on dark evenings. No need to grab a drink and run through possibly conflicting pieces of magic. No excuse to see Crowley’s face lit by soft light. No opportunity to torture himself with memories. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes, forced himself to slow the racing of his heart. 

“Where will you be stationed?” He asked, to order his thoughts. 

“No idea,” Crowley sighed. “I imagine I’ll be moving around for a while.” 

She sounded relieved, Aziraphale thought. Perhaps she was. Perhaps it was a relief to be disappearing off somewhere that Aziraphale could not follow. Aziraphale, who had sought out most of their interactions over these past ten years. Aziraphale, who had been the one to end them but who could not entirely let go. 

The angel swallowed. His fingers were itching to reach out, to touch Crowley and feel the solidity of her body. He wanted to feel the pair of them, here and present. He wanted to know that they were real. (That it had all been real). 

“Are you leaving any projects running?” He asked, instead. He couldn’t bear yet to ask how long she was going to be away. He couldn’t face the idea that she might never be coming back. 

Crowley dropped the butt of her cigarette to the ground, crushing it with the toe of a patent brogue. 

“Tied up all of my nonsense last week. You should have a relatively clean slate to work with.” 

“Right.” 

Again, she seemed to sense the subtext. 

“I didn’t want to leave anything too volatile hanging around the place,” she muttered. “You know what humans are like. Satan knows which way one of my plots would pan out, if left to their devices… I wouldn’t want to end up taking credit for another sodding revolution.” 

“No. Of course not.” 

A smile pulled at Aziraphale’s face, but it wasn’t a real one. It was a forced thing, to cover up a memory. 

_ Crowley, laughing beneath his fingertips. Crowley, sprawled in a puddle of silk. Crowley, painted in candlelight, arching up as snow fell behind Venetian glass. Crowley, gripping onto his thighs, fucking up into him, celebrating their part in another sodding revolution.  _

Crowley. Crowley. Crowley. 

“You’re welcome to the project I have going in Hackney,” Crowley told him - in the park, in the present. 

“Hackney?” Aziraphale blinked, trying to shake himself back. 

“Yeah. One of the red theatre groups. It won’t be any good to me by the time I get back. But you’re welcome to take them for a spin, if you like? I’m sure they have some good mileage in them, in terms of influence.” 

“Right.” The angel’s brain buzzed. He cleared his throat, trying to force his mind back to the present and away from self pity and longing. “Well… that’s certainly an idea, Crowley,” he swallowed. “I’m not sure how I’d work it into my objectives, though.” 

“Oh come on,” Crowley cracked a grin and it warmed Aziraphale through for the briefest of moments. He could see the uneven crossover of her lower teeth, the too-sharp edge of a canine. Such a familiar mouth. “The workers united can work as well for you as they could for me,” she quipped, playfully. “It’s human politics, angel. You can twist it any way you want. Besides, one of the groups works in Yiddish. Thought that might be of interest to you.” 

It was. Aziraphale had not spoken postclassical Hebrew since around the time of the French crusades. Yiddish had Aramaic and Germanic roots. It was linguistically interesting. The fact that Crowley knew he would find it interesting caused something to tighten at the back of Aziraphale’s throat, however. 

He swallowed. Looked down. 

“Thank you.” 

Crowley’s eyes held on him, somehow warm despite the separation of glass and cool night air. Aziraphale felt the plausible deniability of their conversation beginning to slip away. 

Desperation rose up within him. 

He couldn’t let this end. Not yet. Not when he didn’t know when he would next see Crowley - not when the future was so uncertain. There was a sudden, burning desire to throw himself at her feet, to cling to the moment, to do something, anything. 

Words fell from his lips before he could stop them. 

“I could do more if you wanted?” 

Crowley lifted any eyebrow. 

“What do you mean?” 

Aziraphale faltered. 

“I…” He licked at his lower lip. “Well, I was just thinking,” he smiled, false again, trying to gather a bit of steam. The desperation gnawed. He couldn’t let this end. He couldn’t let her go. Six thousand miles away. Possibly forever. “I could always… finish any bits and pieces that you didn’t have time for,” he offered, in a rush. “You know. Wrap things up with the theatre group. That is, if it was something that would help?” 

Crowley’s expression shifted.

There was a very long, very cool silence. 

“I thought we weren’t keeping arrangements any more,” she muttered, after a long pause. 

Aziraphale felt his cheeks flush. Pink and hot. Something tore free inside of him. Something sharp and painful and laced with shame. 

“No, of course we’re not.” He folded his hands together, looking away. “You’re right, entirely. I shouldn’t have suggested it.” 

Another pause.

Crowley stood very still, watching him. 

“We did say that, didn’t we?” 

“Yes. Yes. I’m sorry.” Aziraphale felt the creeping sensation of cold sweat across his skin. “We did… You are quite right. I just thought that, perhaps, it was the friendly thing to do. Not a formal arrangement, or anything. Just friendly.” He glanced up at Crowley and found her watching back.

A torturous few seconds passed. 

“I can’t be your friend right now, Aziraphale.”

“Oh.” This must be dying, Aziraphale thought. This must be what dying felt like. “Of course. I understand.” He cleared his throat. 

Moments passed. 

Crowley slowly slid her hands into her trouser pockets.

“Right. Well…” The false lightness was back in her voice, chilling Aziraphale to the bone. “You’re, uh, welcome to the project, anyway. I’m done with them but they were an interesting lot. Plenty of ideas. And if you’re not interested,” she shrugged, “you can just let them meander off in their own direction. I tied all of the temptations up. They shouldn’t cause any trouble. Nothing inhuman, anyways.” 

“Okay,” Aziraphale nodded, weakly. 

“I’ll let you know when I’m back in town, alright?” 

Aziraphale nodded again, unable to manage words.

“If you want someone to bitch about in your reports,” Crowley took a step backwards, heading towards the gate, “I’d choose Hastur or Ligur. They’re running some nonsense out of Whitechapel. Easy targets.” She gestured vaguely north. “And there’s a succubus called Niamh working up in Lea Valley. She won’t put up too much of a fight if you need to banish someone for numbers. Always pretty fair when it comes to a thwarting, is Niamh.” 

“Okay.”

“Right.” Crowley cleared her throat and prepared to step away. 

Unable to stop himself, Aziraphale squeezed his hands together and took half a step towards her. 

“Crowley?” 

The demon’s jaw tightened minutely but she paused, waiting to hear him out. 

Aziraphale swallowed. 

“Be careful, won't you?” 

Something flickered across his counterpart’s face - something sharp and warning.

“I always am.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale dithered. “But, well…” He forced himself on. “I’ve been doing a lot of research about the current political climate and this seems like a different beast, this war.” He pulled a very tight smile. “A different scale, you know? Certainly, interest from our end has been higher. I imagine it has been similar for you, too, down below. And I imagine that can’t mean anything good.” 

Crowley dipped her head. 

“No. I imagine it can’t,” she conceded, eventually. 

Aziraphale twisted his ring, trying to pluck up the courage to ask Crowley when and if she would be back. But Crowley remained stock still, that sharpness lingering in her jaw, and his courage eventually failed. 

“I just hope you’ll be careful,” he repeated, lamely, and took half a step back again. 

“Yeah.” They stood watching one another for a few more seconds. “You too.” 

“I will.” 

Crowley cleared her throat, starting to move away. “I’ll see you around, Aziraphale” 

“Goodbye.” 

The demon turned on her heel and strode quickly from the park. 

Aziraphale watched her go with a sinking feeling in his gut. 

.

A dreadful winter turned into a worse summer. True to her earlier missives, Michael contacted Aziraphale in the early weeks of spring to request the Principality involve himself with one of heaven’s long plots - an unlikely win, at sea. 

Aziraphale was not terribly bothered by the task, in and of itself. He did not mind boats. Certainly, he fared better on them than Crowley. (Though that did not say much. The demon always spent at least half of any sea journey vomiting over the stern). Aziraphale was a competent sailor, but he did not not much care for the pace of battle - the constant noise and motion. There was nowhere, even on a large ship, to get any peace and quiet and it took some getting used to - having spent the last few centuries cosily sequestered in his bookshop. 

Aziraphale’s war began with a few short trips to the continent on reconnaissance, followed by a few months’ barrage of supply ships, which had been carrying arms to the opposing forces. The petty officers he had been stationed with were hand-picked by heaven for their beliefs and temperaments. They had been chosen to rise up the ranks, over the next few years of the war, to fill important positions. 

They were alright, for the most part. Certainly, Aziraphale did his best by them. He understood the importance of Heaven’s ploy - that the brotherhood that these men would build would be important in saving many lives, before the end, but the project was difficult in the short term. It required Aziraphale to bring them closer together, only to watch them lose one another. To watch their innocence drain away with each passing skirmish. 

The loss of war was always difficult. Aziraphale had always hated watching youth being reduced to utility. Souls turned into numbers in a ledger somewhere. He hated, too, hearing of the turmoil happening back in London and being powerless to help. Though he had few personal human friends left in the city, there was rationing and fear spreading through his local population, accompanied by a growing sense of loss. The country was fracturing, young people being drafted in their droves. Lives put on pause. Families split apart. 

Aziraphale worried about the bookshop. He worried about the humans who worked in the local area. He worried about the greater arc of destruction happening elsewhere on the continent - the looting of the great cities and the destruction of art and songs that he had helped preserve for so long. It was hard to rectify the scale of the destruction with the fact that it was an entirely human endeavour. Heaven might be using it to their advantage, but the horrors that the humans were perpetrating on one another - in the name of nationalism and religion - were of their own invention. 

That was hard to deal with. Incredibly hard. It was hard to see their potential turned to ambition and vengeance. 

Crowley had always said that a human’s capacity for good was perfectly balanced by their capacity for evil, but Aziraphale’s work rarely took him into the darkest corners of their imagination. Into the places that even Hell could not dream up. It was hard to see all of it, now. Especially with Crowley gone from his life - especially without the demon’s trademark optimism. 

_ They’re brilliant. They’re shit. They have to choose what to do with it all. That’s the point, angel. They get to choose! _

The point was something that Aziraphale was decreasingly sure of as the month dribbled on into two months. And then into six. 

.

Heaven kept Aziraphale circulating as a ship’s chaplain for nearly a year before rotating him onto land to help with a small resistance movement in the north of Vienna. The mood there was different, though equally tense. The city had changed in the several hundred years since Aziraphale had last worked there. It had become a strange land, where the ideologies of previous wars and monarchies clashed to create frustrated pockets of people - ripe for the plucking by extremist politicians.

Aziraphale helped his small band of Austrian rebels the best he could. He concentrated on getting supplies in, leaving the politics to the humans. He could not interfere on those levels, but he had always believed that humans were better to one another with a full belly and a roof over their heads. It had always been that way. 

After Vienna, he tried to follow that directive as he made his way across Europe. He kept soldiers warm and fed, their wounds bandaged. He made sure that fresh water made it through barricades and that winter clothing were delivered on time. He helped keep up morale, but struggled with the moral ambiguity of restocking ammunition. Heaven were all for the weaponry aspect - claiming that action was the greatest way to demonstrate a moral argument - but Aziraphale was hesitant. It was a point of contention between him and Gabriel for months. 

In the end, the angel made use of a piece of knowledge Crowley had let slip back in the late eighteen-forties - that the development of the cartridge round had been overseen by Hell and was thus enemy-sponsored. It would be improper, he told a bemused Gabriel and irritated Sandalphon, for them to go about distributing infernal wares. Fruit of the poisonous tree, he had quipped, to blank stares all around. 

They did not make him distribute weapons, then, but he was transferred back to London on the next ship. Irritated by his lack of get-go attitude, Heaven gave him a slew of administrative tasks to accomplish, including poking around in human espionage. Aziraphale was quite sure it would be an improvement on life on the front. As it turned out, however, the angel was not all that hot at espionage. 

He would never have predicted it - he had a first rate mind and keen eye for detail, after all - but his first few missions turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Primarily, this was because humans were just a lot better at lying than angels. Thrice in a row, Aziraphale had been sent on a merry goose chase while the human operatives made off with his money and useful information. Four times after that, he fumbled his story and blew any chances of a contact before they’d even got going. 

Luckily for Aziraphale, however, the other side weren’t doing much better. (Primarily, this was because humans were more imaginative than demons). So, the whole infernal and celestial lot of them spent a lot of time chasing their tails around London’s seedy underbelly, trying to catch spies that didn’t exist, occasionally stumbling over some plot to steal a blueprint, or blow up a train, but generally not coming to any harm. It stayed that way until nineteen forty-one. 

In the spring of that year, Aziraphale happened to bump into a charming young woman at a bookstore in Penge. It was all rather a matter of luck, really. He had only popped in because there had been a rumour going around, about the owner’s father’s sister once having seen Agnes Nutter’s book of prophecy. After being grossly disappointed on that front, Aziraphale had hung around to politely browse the shop’s wares when he had been approached by a young woman called ‘Rose’ who had overheard his conversation. She was interested in books of prophecy too.

After they had shared a short conversation, the young woman had taken him aside and revealed that she worked for the British intelligence service, and that she was tasked with identifying members of a German spy ring working in London. 

It was, perhaps, the greatest boon of Aziraphale’s short spy career. 

It would have been his greatest failure, too, had it not been for Crowley. 

_ Crowley _ . 

The appearance of the demon caught him entirely by surprise. There hadn’t been a whisper, a hint, or a rumour, and suddenly there Crowley was - hopping down a church aisle like it was some long-held arrangement that they should meet. Crowley, wrapped in a new suit and a new hat and brandishing a new name like armour. 

Anthony J Crowley. 

Anthony J Crowley, whose reputation preceded him, according to the humans. Anthony J Crowley, who was on first name terms with the spy ring members - who huffed and joked and stalled for time as Aziraphale blinked at him, quite unable to figure it all out in his mind. 

There had been a catharsis in crawling back into the role that Aziraphale had been playing for the humans - a befuddled bookkeeper, thwarted in his attempts at a double bluff. He and Crowley had been playing this game for millennia, after all. Even before they had been on speaking terms they had had a patter - a script for how the humans they were pretending to be would interact. It came automatically by this point.

Aziraphale spoke, then, on autopilot. As if in a dream. Reality did not click into place until the bomb had fallen, and the miracle had left his fingertips, and the dust was rising into the air around them. Then, the full impact of Crowley’s presence landed like several thousand tonnes of falling masonry.

Thirty seconds passed. 

A minute. 

He stood, watching the demon, the smell of burning church all around them. Watching Crowley, who was no longer on the other side of the world. Who was no longer six thousand miles away. Whose hair had changed and whose clothes were different - who was wearing a new cologne, and shoes, and hat, but who was so indescribably familiar. So wonderfully familiar. Crowley, who’d come back. 

_ Crowley.  _

“That was very kind of you.” 

The words were almost a pleasantry, but not quite. 

Almost a tease, but not quite.

“Shut up.” 

The demon's long fingers rose up, sliding dark glasses free. 

Aziraphale watched them, watched Crowley rub the glasses clean on the back of a folded handkerchief. Watched dark lashes blink down over bright eyes. Turning back, the demon lifted his chin, a pleased smile hovering around his lips. A familiar smile. Familiar mouth.

Crowley. 

_ I can’t believe you’re here. Are you really here? _

The world, which had been moving painfully slowly over the past few years, suddenly began lurching past in leaps and bounds. There was dust in Aziraphale’s nose. He could hear sirens wailing out in the distance. His stomach was empty. His fingers were shaking. 

He fiddled with his hat, not sure of what to do. 

“It was kind,” he told the demon, grasping for words. For direction. For anything. “No paperwork, for a start.” He tried for a smile, but his lips failed him. It was just a whisper of a thing. A half thing, weak with surprise. 

He had come here tonight with no expectation of this - with only the mildest expectation of success. He had had the vague hope of a positive report to send to heaven. He had been expecting to return home, to the shop and sit down with a nice cup of cocoa, and check all of his books-

“Oh, the books!”  His thoughts swam. He raised a hand to his head, trying to remember when he had forgotten them. Trying to remember what had happened between spotting Crowley at one end of the aisle and the moment he was standing in, now.  “I forgot the books! They’ll be blown to-”

But Crowley did not react. Did not show a flicker of surprise. Instead, he leant down, reached in, picked something up. 

“Little demonic miracle of my own.”

And Aziraphale just stared, completely at a loss, because Crowley was handing him the bag of books. And their fingers were brushing. And Crowley was real. He was here. And he’d saved the books. And it was entirely too much…

“Lift home?” 

Aziraphale could only blink. 

Pulling his suit jacket straight, Crowley turned and began to pick his way across a nearby pile of rubble, kicking a piece of fallen masonry aside so that Aziraphale could follow. 

"You shouldn't feel too downtrodden about it, you know,” Crowley called over his shoulder as he made his way down. “You won’t be the first that Rose Montgomery took in.” 

“Rose?” 

Aziraphale stared after the demon, wondering if he’d been hit over the head by a piece of falling spire. Time was moving very strangely. His thoughts were struggling to order themselves with any sense and his body was nowhere near the mark. His feet stumbled as he took a first step forwards, after Crowley, towards the road. 

The demon glanced back at him. 

“You alright?”

“Oh... Yes.” He blinked. “I just... No. Wait. What?” Aziraphale’s eyes travelled over Crowley again - over the new suit and hat, the new haircut and glasses. “I didn’t expect you,” he stated, eventually.

Crowley stilled, one foot on the pavement, the other on a shattered wooden beam - some central pillar which might have once held up the church roof. Not consecrated anymore, Aziraphale noted, dimly. Stripped down to its component parts, a church was just a building. The belief was in the purpose of it. 

“Well.” Crowley shrugged. His expression was difficult to read. “I stumbled across this lot while poking around on a job for below. Figured you could do with a hand.” 

Aziraphale tried to move but couldn't.

“How long have you been back in the country?” He asked, breathlessly. 

“Only two days.”

“Oh.”

“I hopped over from the continent on Monday.” 

“I see.”

Six thousand miles, swallowed up between them. Six thousand years, passed like water under a bridge. Here they were, standing across from one another, just as they had been since the beginning. 

Crowley. 

_ Crowley, Crowley, Crowley. _

“Come on. I’ll give you a lift,” the demon told him, motioning to the black shape that was parked there. 

Aziraphale looked over, picking out a motorcar through the gloom. The machine was dark and sleek with gleaming hubcaps. Exactly the sort of thing that Crowley would wrap around himself. Another layer of humanity to clothe himself in, thought Aziraphale. Like the hat, and the suit, and the new human name. 

Anthony J Crowley. 

Aziraphale wondered again what the ‘J’ stood for - wondered if it really was 'just a J'. 

He decided that it probably was. Crowley meant things. Almost invariably. 

Taking an unsteady step forwards, he started towards the car. Crowley waited until he was near then turned and began to walk towards it too, the pair of them picking their way silently across the field of debris. 

When they arrived at the side of the machine, it was to find that there was not a single mark from the bomb blast, despite it being parked well within range. Dust had not even settled on its windshield. It wouldn’t have dared, Aziraphale realised. This car was wrapped in magic of an ancient and demonic nature. This was Crowley’s object. Perhaps more so than any of the other marks of humanity the demon had chosen, over the years.

Like the name, Aziraphale thought, dimly. 

“Come on, then, get in. I still remember where the bookshop is.” 

Crowley opened the door and left it standing as he sauntered around to the other side of the vehicle. He waited until Aziraphale had lowered himself into the passenger seat before removing his hat, shaking it free of dust, and following. 

Once the demon was seated, the engine of the Bentley rumbled into life. It gave a deep growl, followed by a throaty whine. A car eager to get on its way, Aziraphale thought. Something built for going fast. Something built for throwing itself through the world - just like the demon who sat behind the wheel.

Aziraphale could feel Crowley in the lines of it. 

“This is your car,” he murmured, as the demon pulled down on a lever and turned the wheel, pulling them slowly out into the street - taking care not to roll over any of the larger chunks of bomb blast. 

“Yup,” the demon confirmed.

“What I mean to say is… It  _ feels _ like you.” 

“Well, we’ve been banging around together for a while, now,” Crowley shrugged, staring straight ahead. “She’s bound to have picked up a thing or two.” 

Sitting on his left, Aziraphale could see slivers of the demon's eyes, beneath the glasses. A colour he knew in his bones. 

“When did you get it-, her?” 

“Early thirties.” Crowley took a left at the end of the street, and pressed down on the accelerator, the movement pressing Aziraphale back against his leather seat. “I picked up driving in the twenties as a lark. Never really stuck with one model, though, until this one came along. She used to belong to an Australian chap I knew - name of Rubin. We raced together for a while. This was his baby. Four and a half litres.” Crowley glanced over, listing a series of engine stats that made absolutely no sense to Aziraphale, but which seemed to please the demon immensely. He threw the angel half a grin when he finished. “She’ll do the tonne on a good day. I reckon I’ll be able to coax more out of her, too, once we get to know one another.” 

“My goodness.” Aziraphale blinked at him. “I’m afraid I have no idea what any of that means, dear boy.” 

Crowley let out a low chuckle. An honest thing, which crinkled the corners of his eyes before he directed them back forwards. 

“I know.” 

They drove on for a while, Aziraphale feeling both caught off guard and ‘right’ in a way that he had not felt in years. 

Crowley was here, he kept thinking - his mind stuck on a loop as if he were suffering from shellshock. Crowley, who he had not been sure he would ever see again. Crowley who had left, full of hurt, for the other side of the world. Crowley, whose gentle presence was wrapped around him again, slowly filling him up with warmth.

Crowley. 

The journey from east of St Pauls to Soho took less than twenty minutes, during which the angel listened to Crowley talk about the war in the pacific and bitch about the lack of fine dining on his journey back across Europe. 

“Not a buttered crepe to be had, in Paris,” he told the angel, pulling into the narrow road around the corner from the bookshop and parking up at the curb. “You’d have been very disappointed.” 

They sat, the engine idling. 

Aziraphale stared out at the bookshop face, at the blackout blinds secured on the inside of the windows, at the crack under the door which should have let out a slice of light but miraculously did not. He thought of Paris. He thought of Crowley dressed in revolutionary colours. Of sharing crepes on the banks of the Seine, looking south over the city. It had been burning that night, he thought, just like London was burning now. The humans built it back up, though. Everything was renewed, in time. 

“How is Paris?” He asked the demon. 

“Not brilliant.” Crowley shrugged. “The rationing is severe. People are leaving for the provinces like last time." He wrinkled his nose. "The worst of it hasn’t started yet, I reckon. They’re taking registers of the population. I imagine they mean to do something with them.” 

Aziraphale glanced over at him. 

“Hell?" he asked. 

"No." Crowley winkled his nose. "Human."

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Then, the demon moved the subject on, his tone lighter. " Plenty of room for me to move about, though. Occupied cities are always prime demonic territory. Plenty of rebellions to start - the flames of resistance to fan.” 

Aziraphale swallowed. 

The fact that they had been working on the same side, in this very human war, made something twist in his belly. It made his throat feel very tight and his eyes very dry. 

“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” he muttered, suddenly, the words spilling out of him. 

Crowley looked down at the dashboard, shifting slightly against the leather seat.

There was a very long pause, during which Aziraphale stared out at the bookshop, berating himself. He knew he shouldn’t have said it, really. He knew he should have just let the conversation play out. It had been fine. Comfortable, even. He shouldn’t have rocked the boat. There was something dreadfully wrong with his mind. There had to be. Why did he do this?

“I didn’t know either, to be fair.” 

Aziraphale looked up, sharply. 

Crowley was sliding his glasses off and placing them on his lap, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. His gaze was still focussed forwards, but his eyes were exposed for the first time in so long. It caused the angel’s stomach to drop away a little. 

“I just… needed to get away, or something,” the demon continued, after a pause. “Had to figure out what came next.” 

His words were measured, but they did not sound forced. He sounded calm. Sure.

“I’m sorry for pushing you, the last time we spoke,” Aziraphale muttered. 

Crowley let out a heavy sigh. 

"It doesn't matter. Was a bit of a shit time." 

"I know, but-," Aziraphale closed his eyes, words flooding to his moth before he could stop them. There were so many things he wanted to say - things he had wanted to say for years and thought he would never have the opportunity to voice. “I behaved very poorly, Crowley. It was so selfish of me. Suggesting that we share tasks again…” Aziraphale swallowed. “I’ve been incredibly selfish, in all of this. I am sorry.” 

Crowley pulled a face. 

“I’ve not exactly been a bed of roses, either." 

"It's not-," 

"So maybe we just let it slide, yeah?” 

“Crowley...”

“I’m just..." Crowley sighed. "I'm not interested in attributing blame, alright?” 

Aziraphale shut his mouth.

A tense moment passed. 

“It won’t help,” Crowley continued, after a long few seconds. “And I want to move on from this.” 

They watched one another, Aziraphale swallowing repeatedly to try and keep the tears at bay. They weren’t distraught tears - not like when they had first been forced apart. They were not desperate tears, either, like the first times they had come together again. They were something else. 

This was something else. There was pain, but it was retrospective in a way it had never been, before. They had crossed some line, Aziraphale thought, dimly. They had stepped through some threshold of pain and come out the other side. They had survived. What that meant for them, for their future, Aziraphale was not sure, but it hurt less. And that had to be a good sign. 

“You called me your friend in there, tonight,” he said to Crowley, cautiously. 

The demon nodded. 

“I did.” 

“I do want to be your friend, Crowley... I do.” 

Crowley’s mouth made a small, stifled movement. 

“I know, angel.” 

It was a small thing, the use of that epithet, but it meant so much more than Aziraphale could put into words. 

There was still a gaping distance between them, he thought, but the anger was gone. There was no simmering resentment in the golden eyes watching him through blackout darkness. The sharp pain that Aziraphale had grown used to feeling, whenever he thought of their past, had started to mellow into an ache. Time was moving on, dragging them with it. 

In all honesty, the angel didn’t think he was ready to be Crowley’s friend yet. Though he had longed for little else, these last hundred years, than to get back to ‘what they were before’, he suddenly didn’t know if he was capable. He suddenly didn’t know if he’d ever be ready. But he wanted to be, he thought, firmly. He wanted them to be friends. And Crowley wanted it, too. Surely that was a start?

“Lets just get through this war without getting blown to pieces, eh?” The demon murmured eventually, shifting against the leather seat of the car. “Take it from there.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale agreed. 

They caught one another’s eyes. Smiled tentatively. 

“Thank you for the lift.” 

“Anytime.” That caused a pang. But it was less sharp than before. “Get those books home safe, won’t you?”

“I will.” A pause. “Are you going to be in town long?” 

“Nah. Just a few weeks.”

“Right.” His heart fell a little.

“I’ll be back soon, though.”

Aziraphale looked back up, hopefully. 

“Yes?” 

“Yeah. Couple of months, maybe less.” 

Something warm slid through the angel. For the first time in a long time, it was not chased by shame. 

“I’ll drop you a line when I’m back in town, alright?”

“Yes.” For whatever administrative mistake had happened to allow him such a creature in his life, Aziraphale found himself eternally grateful. “Thank you,” he murmured, watching as the demon slid his glasses back on. “Take care of yourself, Crowley” 

“I always do.” 

“Goodnight.” 

“Night, angel.” 

Gathering himself and his books, Aziraphale slipped himself from the car and stood, watching, as Crowley did a sloppy three-point turn then wound his way back down the street. Beeping the horn once, in goodbye, he disappeared around the corner. 

Clutching the bag of books against his chest, Aziraphale watched the space where he’d disappeared for slightly too long before heading back inside.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Hope you enjoyed it and that the collision with canon wasn't too jarring. We're moving on to the 1960s next. I've still got to finish editing it and the hospital has been slammed this week, so fingers crossed I get it done in time to post next monday. 
> 
> Thank you as always for all of your lovely comments. I appreciate them so much.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me lurking on [IG](https://www.instagram.com/heycaricari/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heycaricari), and [Tumblr](https://heycaricari.tumblr.com/) @heycaricari


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